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CDEaUCUI OEMSm 




JAMES T. NICHOLS 



BIRDSEYE VIEWS OF 
FAR LANDS 



by X 
JAMES T. NICHOLS 



Author of "Lands of Sacred Story,' 
"The World Around," etc. 



Published by 

JAMES T. NICHOLS 

University Place Station 

DES MOINES, IOWA 



Copyrighted 1922 



INTRODUCTION ^ |sj ^ 



Birdseye Views of Far Lands is an interesting, whole- 
some presentation of something that a keen-eyed, alert 
traveler with the faculty of making contrasts with all 
classes of people in all sorts of places, in such a sympa- 
thetic way as to win their esteem and confidence, has 
been able to pick up as he has roamed over the face of 
the earth for a quarter of a century. 

The book is not a geography, a history, a treatise on 
sociology or political economy. It is a Human Interest 
book which appeals to the reader who would like to go 
as the writer has gone and to see as the writer has seen 
the conformations of surface, the phenomena of nature 
and the human group that make up what we call a 
"world." 

The reader finds facts indicating travel and study set 
forth in such vigorous, vivid style that the attention is 
held by a story while most valuable information is being 
obtained. The casual reader, the pupil in the public 
school and student in the high school, professional men 
and women, will all find the book at once highly inter- 
esting and instructive. In no other book with which I 
am acquainted can so much that is interesting be learned 
of the world in so short time and in such a pleasing way. 

Teachers in rural schools will find the book especially 
helpful. It will inspire the pupils in the upper grades in 
these schools to do some observation work themselves and 
to in this manner seek to learn their own localities better, 
while at the same time it will suggest the collection of 
materials about other countries, their peoples, products, 
characteristics and importance from sources other than 
text books. 

Every rural school as well as every high school and 
public library in the land should have one or more copies 
of this book. 

W. F. Barr 
^^ ^ Dean College of Education 

©Ci.A6 8 6 701 DraJ<e University 



-4 '22 



^, / 



AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The contents of this book have appeared, in substance, 
in Successful Farming, a magazine that has a circulation 
of more than eight hundred and fifty thousand copies per 
issue, and the book is published largely at the request of 
many of the readers of this journal. 

The author began traveling in foreign countries many 
years ago. Some of the countries described in the book 
have been visited many times and often with unusual 
opportunity to see places and people as they really are. 

When the writer began traveling it was with no 
thought of ever writing for a magazine or publishing a 
book. It is only natural, however, that one would read 
what others say about the countries he expected to visit. 
Travel books and articles were often read in public li- 
braries and the habit was formed of making extensive 
notes, sometimes entire sentences being copied in note- 
book without the use of quotation marks or any reference 
whatever to the author. It is therefore impossible to give 
credit where credit is often due. 

No literary merit is claimed for the book. The infor- 
mation was gained in every possible way and the book is 
sent forth hoping that it will be suggestive and helpful, 
especially to those who find it impossible to visit foreign 
lands. If the eye of an author of a book or magazine 
article should read the following pages and fall upon a 
thought or sentence that is familiar it will be evidence 
that your book or article was very helpful to the one who 
writes these lines. This book is simply an effort to pass 
some of the worth while things on to others. 



'L. T4^^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Land of Opposites — China 5 

II The Pearl of the Orient— Philippines 12 

III The Country America Opened to Civilization — 

Japan 20 

IV The Transformation of a Nation — Korea 28 

V A Great Unknown Land — Manchuria 35 

VI The Land of Sorrow— Siberia 43 

VII The Home of Bolshevism — Russia 51 

VIII The Nation That Conquers the Sea— Holland. . 58 

IX The Nation That the World Honors— Belgium. 65 

X A Glimpse of America's Friend — France 73 

XI Some Impressions of the Great Peace 

Conference 81 

XII The Nightmare of Europe — Alsace-Lorraine . . 88 

XIII The Home of the Passion Play— 

Oberam^mergau 95 

XIV The Country Where the War Started— Servia. 102 
XV A World-Famous Land— Palestine 110 

XVI A World-Famous City — Jerusalem 116 

XVII A World-Famous River— The Jordan 122 

XVIII The Playground of Moses— Egypt 128 

XIX A Country With a Thousand Rivers — 

Venezuela 136 

XX A Land of Great Industries — Brazil 143 

XXI Uruguay and Paraguay 151 

XXII The Wonderful Argentine Republic 158 

XXIII Yankeedom of South America — Chile 165 

XXIV The Switzerland of South America— Bolivia. .173 
XXV The Land of Mystery— Peru 179 

XXVI The World's Great Crossroad— Panama Canal. 186 
XXVII The Seven Wonders of the World 193 



CHAPTER I 

The Land of Opposites — China 

A HALF century ago the world laughed at Jules 
Verne for imagining that it would ever be 
possible to go around the world in eighty days. It 
was not until years later that Nellie Ely, a reporter, 
actually encircled the globe in that space of time. 
Now we are dreaming of making such a journey 
in ten days and our aeroplanes are flying at a rate 
of speed that would take one around the world in 
eight days. At this hour thousands of young men 
can handle these flyers as easily and with almost 
as little danger as they can handle an automobile. 
With aerial mail routes already established in 
many countries it will not be long until mail 
service by aeroplane will be established around 
the world. 

This book is a series of Birdseye Views of Far 
Lands something the same as one would see on a 
flying visit to various countries. In this way it will 
be possible to get glimpses of countries on every 
continent in one small volume and thus give in- 
teresting and valuable information about countries 
and peoples in all parts of the world. Young peo- 
ple especially are in the mind of the writer. As 
most of the information was secured by rambling 
through these countries and rubbing elbows with 
the common people it will be difficult to keep from 
using the personal pronoun quite often. 

It is fitting that our first view be of China which 
is one of the oldest civilizations on the earth. This 
great agricultural people have tilled the same soil 
for forty centuries and in most cases it yet pro- 
duces more per acre than the soil of perhaps any 



6 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

other country. The Chinese are a great people. 
Although they are just awakening from a sleep 
that has lasted twenty centuries or more, yet the 
world can learn many valuable lessons from them. 
They used to embody the genius of the world and 
even yet have skill along certain lines that is 
simply amazing. Many of the great inventions that 
have blessed the world and which we are using 
today were wTought out by these people and it will 
not be out of place here to recount some of their 
achievements. 

The Chinese invented printing five hundred 
years before Caxton was born and the Peking 
Gazette is said to be the oldest newspaper in the 
world. They invented paper nearly eighteen cen- 
turies ago and had books hundreds of years before 
the days of Gutenburg. They invented the com- 
pass twenty centuries before Jesus was born in 
Bethlehem. They invented gunpowder ages ago 
and were the first people to use firearms. They 
used banknotes and bills of exchange long before 
other nations, and the modern adding machine is 
founded upon a principle which has been used 
by them a thousand years. They discovered the 
process of rearing the silkworm and they dressed 
in silk when our forefathers wore clothing made 
of the skins of animals. The writer has crossed 
the Atlantic more than a dozen times on ships 
with watertight compartments, a so-called modern 
safety device, but the Chinese had watertight com- 
partments in their junks hundreds of years before 
modern steamships were ever dreamed about. 

To the Chinese we must credit the making of 
asbestos, the manufacture of lacquer, the carving 
of ivory and many other important industries. 
Even today they make the finest dishes and the 



The Land of Opposites — China 7 

best pottery. At one time they built a tower two 
hundred and fifty-six feet high entirely of porce- 
lain. Ages ago they dug the longest and in some 
respects the greatest canal ever dug on earth, the 
Grand Canal of China, which was a thousand 
miles long and some of which is in use to this day. 
They built the Great Wall of China w^hich was fif- 
teen hundred miles in length and which was a 
greater undertaking than the building of the Pyra- 
mids of Egypt. 

The Chinese Vv^ere the first people to coin money 
in a mint; the first to have a standard of weights 
and measures; the first to have a system of mark- 
ing time. They had a celestial globe, an observa- 
tory, and noted the movements of heavenly bodies 
more than four thousand years ago. A Chinaman 
was the first to distill and use intoxicating liquor 
and for this he vv^as dismissed from the public 
service by the ruler who said, "This will cost some- 
one a kingdom some day." They are industrious, 
resourceful and skillful and should they become 
warriors and introduce modern methods and in- 
struments of warfare the world w^ould be up 
against the most frightful peril of all ages. Na- 
poleon Bonaparte said of China, "Yonder sleeps a 
mighty giant and when it awakens it will make 
the whole world tremble." 

The Chinese are one of the strongest races of 
people in existence. They have only been con- 
quered twice but in both cases they absorbed their 
conquerors and made Chinese of them. Although 
old, out of date and slow% they have principles in 
their civilization that will last as long as time, and 
China will be a great nation long after some of the 
so-called great nations now in existence are for- 
gotten. 



8 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

With the exception of Russia as it was before 
the world war, the Chinese Empire is perhaps the 
largest the world has ever known. Its population 
comprises one-fourth of the human race. If the 
single state of Texas were as densely populated 
as at least one of the provinces of China, there 
would be living in this one state more than two 
hundred million people or nearly twice as many 
people as are now living in the whole United 
States. The resources of this great country are 
almost boundless. There is said to be coal enough 
in China to furnish the whole world fuel for a 
thousand years. While in China I was told of one 
mountain that has five veins of coal that can be 
seen without throwing a shovelful of dirt. Some 
years ago the German government investigated the 
iron resources of China and published the fact that 
they are the finest in the world. This no doubt 
explains one reason why Germany was trying to 
get a foothold in China. 

But in agriculture the Chinese shine. As noted 
above they have tilled the same soil for four thou- 
sand years. Some of this soil too is very thin and 
poor but it produces as well today as it did a thou- 
sand years ago. While most of their methods are 
the oldest and crudest that can be found, yet in 
some other ways the whole world can learn lessons 
from them. They use fertilizer in the form of 
liquid and put it on the growing plant rather than 
on the soil as we do. The farmer will feed his 
plants with the same regularity and care that our 
farmers feed and care for their horses and cattle. 
Every drop of urine and every particle of night 
soil is preserved for fertilizer. This is saved in 
earthen jars and gathered, mostly by women, each 
morning. A Chinese contractor paid the city of 



The Land of Opposites — China 9 

Shanghai $31,000 in gold in a single year for the 
privilege of collecting the human waste and selling 
it to the farmers around near the city. Where a 
beast of burden is at work a boy or girl is near 
with a long handled dipper ready to catch the 
urine and droppings as they fall. 

In China the farmers have always been held in 
high esteem. While the scholar is highest, the 
farmer is second on the list in the social scale. It 
is interesting to know that the soldier is fifth or 
last on the list because his work is to destroy rather 
than to build up. The hoe is an emblem of honor 
in China. For hundreds of years the Emperor 
with his nobles went every spring to the Temple 
of Agriculture to offer sacrifice. After this cere- 
mony they all went to a field near the temple and 
paid honor to the tillers of the soil. At a yellow 
painted plow, to which was hitched a cow or buf- 
falo, with a yellow robed peasant leading, the Em- 
peror dressed as a farmer put his hand to the plow 
and turned nine furrows across the field while 
bands of musicians chanted the praises of agricul- 
ture. Even the Empress set the example of honest 
agricultural toil by picking the leaves from the 
mulberry trees, early each spring, to be fed to silk 
worms. 

All China is a network of canals and the Chinese 
are a race of irrigators. Both men and women 
stand from daylight until dark walking on a sort 
of a windlass turning an endless chain with buck- 
ets on it, one end of which is in the canal and the 
other end up on the bank, pumping the water up 
to flood the rice fields or irrigate the growing 
crops. No people toil harder or more earnestly 
than do these simple people. While they grow an 



10 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

abundance of vegetables, yet rice and tea are the 
greatest products of China. 

The great rivers of the empire are so liable to 
disastrous floods that in many of the lower lands 
the people content themselves with fishing and 
raising geese and ducks. A duck farm is most in- 
teresting. A large shed by the river, or a raft, will 
serve as a shelter for the night. The farmer of 
course sleeps in this shed. Early in the morning 
he opens the door and out come the ducks. At 
night they return from every direction scrambling 
over each other to get in. The Chinaman sits near 
the door with a long bamboo pole herding them in. 
He even trains drakes to assist him and they care 
for the flock something like a good shepherd dog 
will care for sheep. 

The Chinese do nearly everything backward or 
opposite from the way we do it. The reading in 
their books begins at the end. Instead of across 
the page the lines are up and down with footnotes 
at the top. The Chinaman laughs at a funeral and 
cries at a wedding. He beckons you to come when 
he wants you to go away. Instead of shaking his 
friend's hand in greeting him he shakes his own 
hands. When he gets puzzled instead of scratch- 
ing his head as we do he kicks off" his shoe and 
scratches the bottom of his foot. When he gets 
mad at another he kills himself imagining that his 
dead spirit will haunt the enemy and make life 
miserable for him. Men often do crochet work 
while women dig ditches and drive pihng. Men 
wear petticoats and women wear trousers. 

The Chinese launch ships sideways. Their com- 
pass points to the south. In building a house they 
make the roof first and the foundation is the last 
thing they put in. The key in the door turns back- 



The Land of Opposites — China 11 

ward to lock it. The kitchen is in the front while 
the best room is in the back of the house. When a 
Chinaman sprinkles clothes for ironing purposes 
he uses his mouth as the sprinkler. I never had a 
collar washed in China that was not ironed wrong 
side out. He pays the doctor when he is well and 
stops the pay the moment he gets sick. You can 
almost bank on a Chinaman doing anything the 
opposite from the way you do it and he laughs at 
your way as much as you do at his. 



CHAPTER II 
The Pearl of the Orient — Philippines 

OF ALL the islands in the eastern seas, none are 
more interesting than our own Phihppines. 
Like the genuine pearl which is the result of a 
bruise and the outcome of suffering, these pearls 
of the far east are said by geologists to be the result 
of great volcanic forces that tore them away from 
the continent and set them out six hundred miles 
as "gems in the ocean." More than three thousand 
there are of these islands all together, and their 
combined area is nearly equal to that of Japan or 
California. I visited the Philippines a short time 
before the world war broke out and at that time 
there were seven million acres of arable land un- 
occupied and some of it could be entered and pur- 
chased for ten cents per acre. 

This is a land where the storms of winter never 
blow but where from month to month and age to 
age there is good old summer time. Children are 
born, grow to manhood, old age, and die without 
ever seeing fire to keep them warm for they never 
need it. A range of twenty degrees is about all that 
the spirits in the thermometer ever show, for the 
minimum is seventy-two and the maximum ninety- 
two degrees. While the nights are cool and the 
days warm, yet a case of sunstroke was never 
known and but once in a generation has a hundred 
in the shade been recorded. 

About the most unpleasant feature is the little 
tiny ants. They find their way into everything. 
Table legs must be placed in jars of water and 
yet they find their way to the top of the tables. 



The Pearl of the Orient — Philippines 13 

Then there is dampness everywhere. Books soon 
become mildewed or unglued and the finest Ubrary 
will soon have the appearance of a secondhand 
bookshop. 

Almost all kinds of tropical fruits can be raised 
in the Philippines. I drove out from Manila to the 
home of Mr. Lyon, who is a regular Burbank. He 
located on some of the worst soil to be found and 
undertook to demonstrate that anything that will 
grow on any spot on the earth will grow there and 
he practically succeeded. He has sent to India, 
California, Egypt and nearly everyw^here for the 
rarest orchids and most delicate plants. To eat of 
the fruits of every kind of tree and hear him tell 
the story of plants and shrubs and trees in his 
Garden of Eden is an experience one cannot forget. 

The story of how these islands came into our 
possession is still fresh and vivid in the memory of 
thousands. Spanish cruelty had reached the cli- 
max and Admiral Dewey was commanded to "find 
the Spanish fleet and sink it to the bottom of the 
sea." As the great ship upon which I went into 
and out of this harbor plowed the waves I lived 
over again that marvelous May day in 1898. It 
was one of the great days in our history. As the 
fleet entered the harbor word came to the flagship 
that they were entering a territory covered with 
submarine mines, yet Admiral Dew^ey signaled, 
"Steam ahead." A little later word came that they 
were in direct range of the guns at the fort and 
once more the Admiral signaled "Steam ahead." 
Still later word came that they were entering the 
most dangerous mine-infested district of all and 
were liable any instant to be blown to atoms, and 
once more the fearless Admiral signaled "Steam 
ahead." The result was that the long dark night 



14 Birdseye Vieivs of Far Lands 

of Spanish rule was ended and a new era was 
ushered in. 

The transformation brought about since that 
memorable day is almost unbelievable. The whole 
country has been revolutionized. Railroads and 
macadamized roads have been built with steel and 
concrete bridges and where it used to be almost 
impassable it is now a pleasure to travel. Schools 
and colleges have been established. A bureau of 
labor has averted many strikes. A constabulary 
force of nearly five thousand men has done won- 
ders in suppressing brigandage, bringing the sav- 
age tribes into subjection and preserving the peace 
in general. This force is somewhat similar to the 
mounted police system of Saskatchewan in Canada 
and is a terror to evil doers. 

A bureau of health has transformed the city of 
Manila from a fever-infested hotbed of contagious 
diseases to one of the most healthful cities on the 
globe. Six thousand lepers have been collected 
and established in a colony on an island. The 
number of cases of small-pox has been reduced 
from forty thousand to a few hundred per year. 
Cholera, which used to sw^eep aw^ay tens of thou- 
sands is almost unknow^n. With a dozen or more 
great hospitals and more than three hundred 
boards of health, great things have been accom- 
plished. 

I was much interested in the report of Francis 
Burton Harrison who was a recent governor gen- 
eral of the Philippines who said, "During the war 
this race of people was intensely and devotedly 
loyal to the cause of the United States. It raised a 
division of Filipino volunteers for federal service 
and presented destroyers and a submarine to the 
United States Na\y; it oversubscribed its quota in 



The Pearl of the Orient — Philippines 15 

Liberty bonds and gave generously to Red Cross 
and other war work. America was criticised and 
even ridiculed for her altruism in dealing with 
this problem. The idea of training tropical people 
for independence was thought to be idealistic and 
impracticable. The result was quite to the con- 
trary. Once more idealism has been shown to be 
the moving force in working out the destinies of 
nations. That is what America has done to the 
Philippines." 

"If the city of Manila could, by some genius of 
modern times, be laid down in Europe and tick- 
eted, labeled, bill-posted and guide-booked, it 
would be famous," says one authority. The city 
contains an area of more than fifteen square miles 
and is more dSnsely populated per mile of street 
than New York. When civil government was 
established in 1901 the conditions were deplorable. 
The streets were narrow and filthy and there was 
no sewer system to speak of. The river and dirty 
canals divided and subdivided the city. There 
was practically no water system and disease and 
death lurked in almost every shadow. 

Now the city is fast becoming one of the world's 
great cities and one of the most healthful cities on 
the globe. The streets have been widened, many 
of them, and are kept clean. A water system 
brings pure water to almost every household and 
a great sewer system takes away the filth. The 
Manila Hotel is worth a million and a park or 
square on the water front covers hundreds of acres 
of ground. 

The great Y. M. C. A. buildings were thronged 
as in no other city the writer ever visited. The fire 
department is up-to-date, the police system well 
organized, and even in the great Bilibid prison the 



16 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

reforms introduced are second to none in any 
prison. This prison covers seventeen acres of 
ground, making it one of the largest in the world. 
Many of its fifty buildings are built around a circle 
and in the tower at the center, watchmen, who can 
see the entire prison, stand night and day. 

Through the kindness of the officials the writer 
was allowed to go into this tower one afternoon as 
the five thousand prisoners came from the shops, 
formed into companies and went through a thirty- 
minute drill. The band played throughout and as 
the men were formed into companies we from the 
tower could see each individual company although 
they were hidden from each other. The great body 
of men moved like the wheels of a great clock. 
They stood, knelt, touched hands, lay down, 
arose, walked and exercised, keeping time with 
the music in a way that was wonderful to behold. 
Cells for prisoners have long since been done 
away. They mingle in companies in large sunny, 
clean, dormitories, where they visit, read and sing. 

In the heart of Manila there remains "all that is 
mortal" of one of the most interesting spots in the 
eastern world. It is the old, old capital city and 
its story is the story of the Philippines. The old 
walls of this inner city were built some four hun- 
dred years ago and could they speak, the whole 
world would listen with amazement and horror. 
There were seven gates in this old wall and they 
were closed and opened by means of gigantic, 
windlasses. n 

Then, too, the story of the old Fort Santiago': 
almost rivals that of the Tower of London. Here 
were found, when we took it, mysterious under- 
ground passages, store rooms and magazines, dark 
and hidden chambers some of which were nearly 



The Pearl of the Orient — Philippines 17 

half filled with skeletons. The stories that center 
around this old fort make one shudder to hear 
them. Possibly they are exaggerated, but there 
are many today who believe them. As an example, 
we are told that a woman had been walled up in a 
cell, wdth only a small opening through which food 
was shoved in, the day her baby w^as born and 
when the Americans came they found her and her 
sixteen-year-old child in this dark room. The 
child had never had even a glimpse of the sunlight. 

When I cHmbed upon this old fort and saw the 
stars and stripes waving in the breeze, where 
for more than three hundred years the Spanish 
emblem had terrorized the people, I thought of 
the mightj^ changes that the American flag had 
brought. That memorable day in 1898 when our 
own General Merritt met the Spanish governor- 
general and arranged for the surrender of the city, 
was one of the greatest days in the history of the 
orient. 

People in Manila slept but little that eventful 
night for somehow they had gotten the idea that 
the coming morning would be their day of doom. 
When the sun arose they hardly breathed. For a 
whole week they were afraid to venture from their 
homes. But there was no pillage, no plunder and 
no bloodshed. When the amazed people found 
courage to venture out, their astonishment knew 
no bounds. It was almost too good to be true that 
American occupation meant the dawning of a new, 
and for them, a glorious day, and it is not surpris- 
ing that such a report could be given as Governor 
General Harrison submitted in 1919. 

Soon after he came from the Philippines I heard 
Rev. Homer C. Stuntz recount many of his experi- 
ences there and will give a single one of these as 



18 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

memory recalls it. As Bishop of the Methodist 
church he had been there about six months when 
one day a fine looking young Filipino came to his 
home and asked for a private interview. He in- 
sisted on having doors and windows closed and 
blinds all down. Mr. Stuntz said he had no idea 
what the man wanted. When they were alone with 
door locked and with evidence of great agitation 
the young man said : "I have come many miles to 
see you and ask you a question that means more 
to us Filipinos than any other question that I could 
ask." Mr. Stuntz said that as yet he had no idea 
what was troubling the man until he continued : "I 
want to know, sir, if it is now safe — the soldiers 
say it is, but I cannot believe it — to have a copy of 
the Protestant Bible in my house and read it to my 
family?" 

Mr. Stuntz said the whole thing seemed so 
strange to him that he was silent for a moment, 
when the man continued: "Sir, this is a very im- 
portant question to us Filipinos. You know the 
law imder which we have lived here is this," and 
quoting from section 219 of the Penal Code of 
Spain in the Philippines, said: "If any person or 
persons shall preach or teach or otherwise main- 
tain any doctrine or doctrines not established by 
the state, he shall be deemed guilty of a crime and 
shall be punished at the discretion of the judge." 
Then, to the amazement of Mr. Stuntz, the man 
continued: "Under the operation of that law my 
own father was dragged from our house and we 
never saw him alive again. That was when I was 
eleven years old. I have supported my mother as 
best I could, and now I have a wdfe and two chil- 
dren. I want to know if it is safe." 



The Pearl of the Orient — Philippines 19 

It was with a heart thrilling with pride that this 
great American took the young man to the window 
and as he opened the blind and the window itself 
and saw the stars and stripes proudly waving in 
the breeze and with tears running down his face 
said to him : "My dear man, as long as yonder flag 
waves over the city you may take the Bible and 
climb up on the ridgeboard of your house at high 
noon each day, three hundred and sixty-five days 
in the year and read it as loud as you can and no 
man shall harm you." Three months later Mr. 
Stuntz went to that man's home city, spoke from 
half past seven until midnight, announced that he 
would speak in the same building at six o'clock 
the next morning, and an hour before the ap- 
pointed time five hundred people were in line 
waiting to get in. 



CHAPTER III 

The Country America Opened to Civilization — 

Japan 

THREE hundred and fifty years ago there were 
perhaps a niiUion Christians in Japan. The 
great Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier, intro- 
duced the religion of the Nazarene into Japan in 
1849, and it spread like a prairie fire. But in the 
course of time the Japanese leaders turned against 
the priests and leaders of the new religion and 
undertook to obliterate everything Christian from 
their civilization. 

They placed a price upon the head of every 
Christian. They made what they called footplates, 
a plate about the size of a shoe sole with a picture 
of Christ upon it. When a person w^as brought 
whom they suspicioned as being a Christian they 
put this footplate down and commanded the ac- 
cused one to stamp it. If this was done freely the 
person was allowed freedom, for they said no 
Christian would step on the face of Christ. If 
the accused one refused to do this the horrors of 
his torture w^ere so great that death was a release. 
The writer of these lines has seen some of those 
old footplates that have been preserved to this day. 

Stone signboards were placed along the high- 
ways of Japan upon which were written : "So long 
as the sun shall continue to warm the earth, let no 
Christian be so bold as to enter Japan; and let all 
know that the King of Spain himself, or the 
Christian's God, or the great God of all, if he dare 
violate this command, shall pay for it with his 
head." I saw one of these old signboards on ex- 
hibition in a museum in Tokj^o. Japan closed her 



America Opened Japan to Civilization 21 

ports, established a deadline around her domain 
and allowed no ships to land, shut out the world 
and became a hermit nation. 

It was the eighth of July, 1853, that a fleet of 
vessels boldly crossed the forbidden line and 
dropped anchor in what is now known as Yoko- 
hama harbor. It was Commodore Perry and the 
stars and stripes w^ere waving from the ship masts. 
At once there was great excitement on shore and 
soon boats with men wearing swords were along 
the ships' sides trying to explain that they were on 
forbidden territory. 

The men in the small boats were told emphatic- 
ally that only the highest official could come on 
board. One of the men represented that he was 
second in rank and when he was allowed to come 
on board Commodore Perry refused to see him. 
After a parley this Japanese officer was made to 
understand that the expedition bore a letter from 
the President of the United States to the Emperor 
of Japan and that it could be delivered only to the 
officer of the highest rank. When the Japanese 
officer produced the notifications w^arning all ships 
against entering the port, the lieutenant refused 
to receive them. 

Returning to the shore the officer came back to 
the ship in an hour or two saying that his superior 
would not receive the letter addressed to the Em- 
peror; that he doubted that the Emperor would 
receive the letter at all. He was instantly informed 
that if the superior officer did not come for the 
letter at once the ships w^ould proceed up the Bay 
of Yeddo and deliver the letter without him. Of 
course this ultimatum created great excitement 
and the officer finally asked a stay in the proceed- 
ings until the next day. 



22 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

During the night signal fires blazed from the 
mountain tops and bells sounded the hours. In 
the next few days the famous letter, which was in- 
cased in a golden box of a thousand dollars value, 
was delivered. Nothing very definite was accom- 
plished, however, and the fleet came home. The 
next year Commodore Perry returned with a larger 
fleet, another letter, and with presents of various 
kinds. These consisted of cloth, agricultural im- 
plements, firearms and a small locomotive with 
cars and a mile of circular track for the miniature 
train, together with a telegraph line to go around it. 

The interest and curiosity caused by this minia- 
ture railway was wonderful. People walked hun- 
dreds of miles to see it. When some of the digni- 
taries were told that in the United States of Amer- 
ica there were many large trains in which hun- 
dreds of passengers were carried they could hardly 
believe it. One of these oflQcials said that if big 
trains could carry passengers little ones ought to 
be able to do so. It was then arranged for him to 
take a ride. With his flowing robe he was assisted 
to mount one of these little cars like as if it were 
a donkey. The whistle was blown, the steam 
turned on and away he went around the circle and 
it created as much excitement as a balloon once 
did at a circus in this country. 

Finally, it was suggested that a treaty be made 
between the United States and Japan. On board 
the flagship of Commodore Perry was a minister 
of the gospel who was consulted and after much 
discussion a clause was inserted giving America 
the right to erect or establish places of worship in 
Japan and a promise that Japan would abolish the 
practice of trampling on the face of Christ and the 
cross. 



America Opened Japan to Civilization 23 

At first our missionaries were restricted to cer- 
tain localities and they had a time of it. Less than 
twenty-five years ago this treaty was revised and 
until this was done no Christian missionary could 
leave these restricted areas without permission 
from the Japanese government. This treaty also 
gave Japan the right to send their missionaries to 
the United States and thus we have a half hundred 
Buddhist temples on the Pacific coast at the 
present time. 

On landing at Yokohama, one of the first places 
I went to visit was the great bronze idol of Kama- 
kura, which is but eighteen miles from Yokohama. 
It is about fifty feet high, and it is called the "Great 
Buddha" or "Diabutsa." It is a thousand years 
old and a horrible looking affair. I went up into 
the hollow image which is ninety-seven feet in 
diameter. I wanted to scratch the eyes out, for 
they are said to be made of solid gold. Years ago 
there was a temple over this image, so it is said, 
but a great tidal wave swept the building away. 
Now they are collecting money from tourists to 
erect another temple, so they say. They tackle 
every American for a subscription and strangely 
enough they get a lot of money out of them. 

Speaking of heathen temples brings to mind a 
large one that I visited in Tokyo. It is dedicated 
to a fox. The people used to believe, some of them 
do yet, that when one dies his spirit enters the 
form of some animal. A man is afraid to throw a 
rock at a dog for fear he will hit his old grand- 
father — he doesn't know but that his grandfather's 
spirit entered that particular dog. So they dedi- 
cate their temples to these lower animals and often 
take better care of animals than poor people. 

In this Tokyo temple mentioned there is a great 



24 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

image in one end of the building and below it a 
money chest nearly as large as a trunk the lid of 
which is like a hopper. Of course it takes money 
to keep up the temple and the followers of Buddha 
come here to worship. They always pay before 
they pray. A lot of us pray and then don't pay. 
Fortune tellers are nearly always in heathen tem- 
ples. The gambling instinct abounds. The people 
too often undertake to deceive their gods by mak- 
ing promises that they will do so and so if success- 
ful when they never intend to fulfill the promises. 
It makes one's heart ache to see people bow down 
before these lifeless idols. Most of these temples 
are hotbeds of immoralitj^ as many of the treach- 
erous priests have neither principle nor conscience. 

One night I went to a real Japanese hotel. Of 
course, in a great city like Tokyo, there are plenty 
of English or European hotels, but in this case I 
went for the experience. Before entering we had 
to take off our shoes. No person enters a real 
Japanese house with shoes on. However, they 
wear clogs that can be kicked off at the door. En- 
tering a small vestibule of the hotel a servant 
bowed, seated us, took off our shoes, put them up 
like checking one's grip, brought slippers and 
assisted in putting them on, then invited us in. The 
proprietor bowed and began to apologize. The 
Japanese always apologize. A friend was with me 
and the landlord said that he was very sorry that 
he had no rooms good enough for such dignified 
guests to sleep in, but he would give us his best. 

Bidding us follow him he led the way upstairs. 
I simply could not keep the slippers on my feet so 
took them off and carried them, one in each hand. 
At the top of the stairway a door slid open and a 
Japanese lady began laughing. I expect she is tell- 



America Opened Japan to Civilization 25 

ing yet about a foreigner who once came to the 
hotel who thought shppers were to wear on his 
hands. On reaching the rooms, amidst profuse 
apologies, he named the price which was double 
the amount named on the printed card. When my 
friend called his attention to his published prices 
he said : "Yes, but I will make you fine gentlemen 
a discount," and proceeded to discount the price to 
that named on his card. 

The city of Tokyo is a little world in itself. It 
contains nearly three million people. It covers 
more than twenty-eight square miles of territory. 
Its streets are generally narrow and in much of 
the city there is practically no sewer system. The 
refuse and night soil is all saved and sold for fer- 
tilizer. If a fire should get well started it looks 
like a great portion of the city would go up in 
smoke for most of the houses are of flimsy mate- 
rial and would burn like haystacks. 

They have no system of numbering houses and 
to hunt for some certain one is like hunting for a 
needle in a haymow. Like in all cities the people 
are pleasure loving and the parks and shows are 
well attended. In the very heart of the city is a 
square mile of territory given entirely up to the 
lowest form of evil. It is undoubtedly one of the 
most wicked spots on the globe. 

One must not judge the Japanese people or even 
the people of Tokyo by this standard, however, for 
no people ever made such tremendous strides as 
have the Japanese nation since the days of Com- 
modore Perry. The great Imperial University of 
Tokyo makes one think of Yale or Harvard. The 
buildings are modern and the campus beautiful 
and well kept. Passing through these grounds a 
friend pointed out the most noted buildings. En- 



26 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

tering them I found the most modern and up-to- 
date equipment. One large building is devoted 
exclusively to the study of earthquakes. The Jap- 
anese know more about earthquakes than any 
other people. 

The students are taught how to erect buildings 
earthquakeproof. The most powerful seismo- 
graphs in the world are in this university. I saw 
a record of the San Francisco earthquake that was 
made by these instruments — just when it started, 
when it was at the worst, length of time it lasted 
and all about it. Here in this building is a picture 
of a place where, during an earthquake, the ground 
was opened and a lot of people had fallen perhaps 
a hundred feet down. The photograph was evi- 
dently taken just as the ground was closing and 
the people below w^ere waving good-bye to those 
above as they were going to their death. 

Japan has been called the land of flowers and 
cherry blossoms or The Flowery Kingdom. It is 
one of the most interesting countries on the globe 
to visit. While shut away to themselves these peo- 
ple developed a civilization of their own which is 
far superior, in most respects, to that of other ori- 
ental peoples. Their experience with Christian- 
ity, corrupt though it was, no doubt gave them the 
start. The entire area of Japan is but little larger 
than California and most of it is very mountainous 
and yet so wonderful are they in the development 
of agriculture that nearly sixty million people live 
upon the products of their soil. 

The Japanese people think a lot of America for 
they recognize the fact that to America they owe 
more than to any other nation. Their friendship 
for us is real too, if one can judge anything by 
mingling with the people. All this talk about Japan 



America Opened Japan to Civilization 27 

attacking America is too ridiculous to think seri- 
ously about, even though we have not treated them 
as we should in all cases. If you were in Tokyo 
today you would see the stars and stripes just 
below their own flag, and you would see more 
American flags than of all other nations combined, 
barring of course, their own. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Transformation of a Nation — Korea 

THE Palestine of eastern Asia is Korea. While 
called the "Land of the Morning Calm," it has 
been the battleground of the eastern world for 
centuries. Japan on the east has looked upon Ko- 
rea as a "sword pointed at her heart." China on 
the south has always felt that Korea practically 
belonged to her, while the Great Bear on the north 
has looked longingly for ages toward this coveted 
land. The same can be said of Manchuria as well. 
Until recent years the world knew but little of 
this country. It was really a "Hermit Nation." 
The people lived in walled cities and allowed no 
outside people to come in. Less than a half cen- 
tury ago signboards could be seen along the high- 
ways upon which was written: "If you meet a 
foreigner, kill him; he who has friendly relations 
with him is a traitor to his country." It is said 
that they actually kept the country along the sea 
shore barren and unattractive while in the interior 
the people lived on the fat of the land. The moun- 
tain peaks were great beacon towers lighted up 
every night to signal to the capital that no danger 
threatened and all was well along the borders. 

In area, Korea is about as large as Minnesota. 
The population is more than fifteen millions. Ex- 
cept in the northern part, which is as cold as Min- 
nesota, the climate is delightful. Nearly every- 
thing that will grow in Japan will grow in Korea. 
The surface is largely mountains and plains. In 
the mines are gold, copper, iron and coal, as well 
as other minerals. The silk industry is becoming 



The Transformation of a Nation — Korea 29 

one of great value and although every mountain 
forest has been cleared, some paper is made. 

Perhaps in no other country in the world has 
such an effort been made to keep men and women 
apart as in this strange land. In Seoul, the capital 
citA% they used to toll a bell at eight in the evening 
which meant that men must "go indoors and let 
women on the streets. Blind men, officials, and 
certain others were exempt. Any man with a doc- 
tor's prescription was allowed on the streets, but 
so many of these were forged that much trouble 
resulted. At midnight the bell tolled again and 
after that hour men could circulate on the streets 
freely without danger of arrest. 

The people in Korea nearly all dress in white 
no matter what their work may be. Men and 
women dress much alike. A curious custom among 
married women is the wearing of waists that ex- 
pose the entire naked breasts. This is all but beau- 
tiful and as some one says, gives the appearance of 
a shocking show window. The theorj^ is, so they 
say, that to cover the breasts is to poison the miilk. 
No man really amounts to much in Korea until 
after he is married, but that is largely true in our 
countr\\ There, however, silence is the wife's first 
dutj\ Marriage customs are much like those in 
Japan where parents make the matches. It is said 
that often the husband never hears the voice of 
his wife until after marriage and even then she 
keeps silent for as long as a month. 

The Korean people have some happy times to- 
gether in spite of some of these strange customs. 
One of their national festival days is called "Swing 
day." Swings are prepared nearly everj"\v^here 
and people drop their work and swing. The Kore- 
ans are different from any other people in the far 



30 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

east and when they play they play with all their 
might. Men and boys love to hunt the swimming 
holes along the streams and they seem to enjoy this 
sport as do our own men and boys in America. 

While Korea has been a battleground for ages 
yet it was opened up to modern civilization by 
Japan something like America, through Commo- 
dore Perry, opened up Japan. Later on Korea paid 
tribute to China. The great crisis came in 1894 
when the battle royal was waged between Japan 
and China for this land. On September 15th of 
that year a great battle occurred on land and two 
days later, in the mouth of the Yala River occurred 
what is said to be the first great naval battle of 
history in which modern warships were used. In 
this battle the Chinese fleet went to the bottom of 
the sea and soon Port Arthur was besieged and 
taken and the Japanese army started across the 
country with the cry, "On to Peking." This opened 
the eyes of the Chinese and Korea was surrendered 
and was practically annexed by Japan and its 
name changed to Chosen. Since that time Korean 
civilization has gone forward by leaps and bounds 
and is fast becoming a country that has to be reck- 
oned with. The story of Japan's dealings with 
Korea during these years contains some mighty 
dark spots. These things have aroused the indig- 
nation of the whole civilized world and the end is 
not yet. 

To plant the seed of Christianity on Korean soil 
has required a great effort and the story of the 
transformation of this nation that has occurred 
within the past forty years is as thrilling as can 
be found in the history of modern missions. It 
was the pleasure of the writer to travel to the far 
east with one who has been on the field in Korea 



The Transformation of a Nation — Korea 31 

for twenty-five years. Thirteen of these years were 
spent in the city of Pyeng Yang which became the 
scene of one of the greatest revivals in all the his- 
tory of the Christian church. 

At the time that Mr. and Mrs. Swallen, who were 
sent as missionaries by the Presbyterian church 
(Mrs. Swallen was my traveling companion), to 
Pyeng Yang, if was said to be the most wicked city 
in Korea. So frightful were the conditions that 
boys in their play would often drag the corpse of 
a person who had died during the night through 
the streets the next day, unmolested. It is almost 
impossible to believe the story of things that oc- 
curred almost daily in this city. 

The first building of the mission was but eight 
feet square, not much larger than a storebox. As 
at that time men and women were always separate 
in public gatherings, the men met at one hour and 
the women at another. Soon the building was 
doubled in size. When the Swallen's took charge 
the mission was called the Central church. Then 
came the great revival wave and the church grew 
to a great congregation. A new building seating 
between five and six hundred was erected and 
before it was finished it was too small. About one 
hundred members then withdrew to form another 
congregation in another part of the city. A little 
later another hundred started still another con- 
gregation. 

As the Central church building was even yet far 
too small they erected a great building that will 
seat two thousand. The interest was so great that 
other congregations had to be formed and at the 
time Mrs. Swallen told me this wonderful story, 
out from this little store-box mission seven great 
congregations had been formed in different parts 



32 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

of the city. Besides this the movement spread to 
the country and nearly thirty congregations had 
grown from this central mission. 

Then came the great revival of 1910 which at- 
tracted so much attention. These people started 
the cry, "A million converts in one year." The 
work was systematized. Bible classes were formed 
and every Christian became a real missionary, 
Volunteers were called for, who could give one or 
more days to the work. Nearly everyone volun- 
teered and during the first three months it was 
estimated that seventy-five thousand days of per- 
sonal work was promised. Great earnestness and 
enthusiasm were manifest everyivhere. 

The pastor of this Central church and one of his 
elders formed the habit of going to the church 
every morning at dawn for prayer. This soon 
became known and others wished to join them. 
One Sunday morning the pastor announced that 
all who wished to do so might join them the fol- 
lowing morning and the bell would be rung at four 
thirty. At one a. m. the people began gathering 
and at two o'clock more than one hundred were 
present. For four mornings these meetings were 
kept up and between six and seven hundred were 
present each morning. On the fourth morning the 
pastor asked how many would give one or more 
days of service and every hand went up, more than 
three thousand days work being promised. 

The secret of this mighty revival seems to have 
been caused by the study of the Bible and prayer. 
Everyone carried a New Testament. Bible train- 
ing classes were formed and sometimes two thou- 
sand men actually gathered to study the Bible. In 
the churches in Korea, even yet men and women 
sit apart from each other. A petition divides the 



The Transformation of a Nation — Korea 3S 

building but both men and women can see the 
minister. Men keep their hats on in church, but 
all, both men and women, take off their shoes 
before entering. To see these shoes, or clogs, is 
quite a sight. They are placed in racks made for 
that purpose, each having their own particular 
place in the rack. 

As might be expected trouble over shoes is not 
unheard of. Some of the women who are not over 
scrupulous sometimes take the best pair of shoes. 
In fact this custom became so universal that the 
women were taught to make and carry with them 
to church a small muslin bag. On reaching the 
church the women now take off their shoes, place 
them in the bag, and take them into the building 
with them. All, both men and women, sit on the 
floor. In some of the churches now small mats 
are piled high at the door and each takes one of 
these to sit on. One remarkable feature of these 
Korean churches is that each church is self-sup- 
porting from the beginning. Instead of leaning 
upon others they are taught to depend upon them- 
selves. 

The World's Sunday School Convention was re- 
cently held in Tokyo. A significant thing about 
the invitation cabled to this country for this con- 
vention was the fact that it was signed by Japan's 
leading captain of industry and the Mayor of 
Tokyo as well. A Business Man's Sunday School 
Party had toured both Japan and Korea before 
this, however. In almost every one of the forty 
cities visited this party was met by governors, 
mayors, chambers of commerce, boards of educa- 
tion, railroad officials, as well as Christian work- 
ers and the friendly attitude of Japan toward 
America was manifest in every possible way, at 



34 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

the very time too when the California legislature 
was stirring up so much trouble between the two 
nations. 

But the greatest demonstration of all on this 
entire trip was that made in Seoul, Korea. The 
day was perfect. The great throng marched to the 
parade grounds, a Sunday school banner leading 
the way. Only members of Sunday schools and 
officials were admitted and fourteen thousand 
seven hundred Sunday school workers, by actual 
count, went into the grounds. It is said that the 
Japanese officials who for the first time witnessed 
an array of the Sunday school forces of Seoul 
looked troubled. It was in the month of May and 
the bushes of the old palace yard were abloom in 
white and red. As the great multitude sang the 
Christian hjrmns in the Korean language the very 
buildings almost trembled. 



CHAPTER V 
A Great Unknown Land — Manchuria 

OF ALL the lands in eastern Asia perhaps the 
least is known about Manchuria of any of 
them. And yet one of the finest sleeping cars I 
ever traveled in was on the South Manchurian rail- 
way. I had a large roomy compartment to myself. 
In it was a comfortable bed, or berth, a folding 
washstand and writing desk, electric fan, and vari- 
ous other conveniences. While this was an east- 
ern model sleeper, an American pullman was also 
attached to the train for those who preferred it. 

For two hundred and seventy years the Man- 
churians furnished the rulers for the whole Chi- 
nese Ernpire. The Empress Dowager was a 
Manchu. Born in a humble home, at the age of 
sixteen she became a concubine of the Emperor. 
She was so diligent in study and self -improvement 
that she was elevated to the position of first concu- 
bine and later became the mother of the Emperor's 
son and was raised to the position of wife. When 
her son was but three years of age the Emperor 
died and she swept aside all aspirants to the 
throne, placed her son upon it with herself as 
regent until he was of age. For forty-seven years, 
in a country where women had scarcely any 
power, this marvelous woman ruled one-fourth 
of the human race. 

Manchuria is a little larger than the combined 
area of Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and 
Missouri. It is located at the northeast of China 
and until recently formed a part of the Chinese 
Empire. While nearly all kinds of grain and vege- 



36 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

tables are grown, the one great staple crop of Man- 
churia is the soybean. Think of growing two mil- 
lion tons of these beans per year! Before the war 
Manchurian beans were shipped all over the 
world. In a Manchurian city I asked a business 
man to tell me the chief sights of the city and he 
said: "We have nothing here but bean mills. It 
is beans, beans, beans." In the hills and mountains 
nearly all kinds of wild beasts are found. The 
Manchurian tiger is perhaps most dreaded of all. 

Perhaps the best known place in Manchuria is 
Port Arthur. Years ago the Chinese had what 
they believed to be an impregnable fortress in Port 
Arthur, but the wily Japanese battered it down in 
twenty-four hours. Later on the Russians got it 
and worked seven years on the fortifications and 
gun emplacements and really felt that they had it 
secure. Although the forts were built on the Bel- 
gian plan and Port Arthur was as secure as Ant- 
werp, yet the unconquerable Japanese took it with 
a loss of only a thousand or fifteen hundred men. 
Nature has been kind to Port Arthur by throwing 
up the mountains of "The Chair," "The Table," and 
the "Lion's Mane," but the best defense that nature 
provides has to give way before the genius of the 
human brain. 

Only a little more than four miles from Port 
Arthur is the city of Dalney, also called Dairen. It 
is a beautiful little city of fifty or sixty thousand 
people with a good street car system and many 
modern buildings. On landing I went to the 
Yamato hotel and found comfortable quarters at 
a reasonable price. The South Manchurian rail- 
way operates a string of these Yamato hotels. This 
is a Japanese railway and operates with a steam- 
ship line crossing the Yellow Sea and the great 



A Great Unknown Land — Manchuria 37 

Trans-Siberian railroad, or rather did so before 
the world war. In Dalny I found a good Y. M. C. 
A. building with an American secretary. This 
association has good buildings in nearly every 
large oriental city especially if it is near the coast. 
One can hardly realize the debt of gratitude civili- 
zation ows to this organization. These buildings 
are oases on the great oriental desert where the 
American traveler can find rest and a quiet home. 

At the close of the war between Russia and 
Japan by the treaty of Portsmouth, Russia agreed 
to transfer to Japan without compensation and 
with the consent of the Chinese Government, the 
South Manchurian Railway between Port Arthur 
and Changchun, a distance of four hundred and 
thirty-six miles, "together with all rights, privi- 
leges, and properties appertaining thereto in that 
region, as well as all coal mines in said region be- 
longing to or worked for the benefit of the rail- 
way." The Chinese Government also agreed not 
to construct any parallel lines that would injure 
the interests of this railway, so the Japanese have 
an iron hold upon the whole proposition. 

To travel the full extent of this railway in the 
late fall is an interesting experience. The soil is 
of a reddish color and the fall plowing was already 
done. The methods of farming used in China 
largely prevail here. I saw many of them taking 
their beans, grain, and other produce to market. 
Along the dusty highway the oxen slowly trudged, 
drawing great wooden wheeled carts. On one 
occasion the engine had frightened the oxen and 
they had their heads up and tails flying as the 
loaded cart bumped along over the field with the 
driver doing all he could to get them back into 
the highway. Women and children were often sit- 



38 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

ting on the ground in the villages, seemingly with- 
out any work whatever to do. 

The Manchurian people are larger physically 
than the Chinese and are better looking. But some 
one has said of the Manchu, "he knows not, neither 
does he learn." They say that he only bathes once 
a 5^ear and does not care who owns the ground as 
long as he can till it, and that it does not bother 
him in the least to see his wife and daughter sit 
on the stone fence for hours picking the lice from 
each other's head. The women folks are largely 
slaves of fashion and still persist in trying to stunt 
the growth of their feet. Even while they do this 
they often work in the harvest field, wash their 
clothing along the streams, clean out the donkey 
stable, and do all kinds of outdoor work. While 
baking bread, spanking their children and doing 
other household duties, thev are not slow in look- 
ing after and waiting upon their lordly husbands. 

Some years ago a plague of the most deadly 
description swept over northern Manchuria. It was 
so terrible and fatal that when one was stricken 
there was but little hope for recovery. It was 
so contagious that when one member of a family 
took it, generally the entire family perished, as 
simply a whiff of the breath of one stricken w^as 
sufficient to give it to another. The government 
made every effort to cope with the situation but 
the difficulties were tremendous and the scourge 
spread like a prairie fire. More than forty-two 
thousand took it and it is said that not a single 
one recovered. 

The ground was frozen so hard that it was im- 
possible to dig graves for the dead and preparation 
was made for cremating bodies. This created con- 
sternation among the Manchus. Every possible 



A Great Unknown Land — Manchuria 39 

subterfuge was resorted to to conceal cases of the 
plague and bodies were often hidden in the snow 
all winter long. Dr. Jackson, a brilliant young 
physician of the Irish Presbyterian Mission in Man- 
churia, was stricken and died, as did Dr. Mesny, a 
splendid French physician. Early the next spring 
the plague ceased as suddenly as it broke out and 
has never appeared again in any country. How- 
ever, many believe the "influenza" is a modifica- 
tion of this plague. 

Mukden, the Manchurian capital city, has been 
called "The Asiatic Armageddon!" It is a walled 
city and contains a couple of hundred thousand 
people. During the Russian- Japanese war a por- 
tion of it is said to have been eight diff*erent times 
in the hands of the Russians and Japanese. The 
streets are unpaved; dirt and filth abounds. There 
are many big dirty restaurants. The Manchus are 
great feeders. They eat between meals, soup and 
vegetables and most everything else. The temper- 
ature of Mukden is about the same as Saint Paul, 
Minnesota. 

The Imperial Tombs are not far from Mukden. 
The road to these tombs is paved with stones. This 
is called the "Road of the Spirit." On each side 
are six great life-sized stone animals. It is thought 
that these signify the Emperor's rule over certain 
countries. Visiting the great Ming Tombs near 
Nanking, China, one sees many of these large stone 
animals. 

Not far from Mukden one can get a look at the 
great Wall of China, the building of which is said 
to be the greatest undertaking of all history. It 
was fifteen hundred miles long, fifty feet thick at 
the bottom and from twenty-five to forty feet high. 
It was built over mountains, across valleys and 



40 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

rivers and down into the sea. There were towers 
about every three hundred yards and although 
built more than two thousand years ago, much of 
it is in good repair to this day. It took a million 
men ten years to do the job of building it. The 
Chinese and Manchus were great wall builders. 
Their cities were always walled. 

Mukden stands on a plain but its walls are forty 
feet high and thirty feet thick at the top. At each 
corner, and over each of the eight gateways there 
used to be a tower, and then the great Drum Tower 
and Bell Tower were in the midst of the city. 
Nearly every city had its big Drum Tower upon 
which drums were beaten if the city was in danger 
or an enemy near. Here in Mukden nearly all 
these towers have been taken down, but large por- 
tions of the old city walls remain. There are said 
to be very many more men than women in the city 
today. Until 1905, it is said, the city never had a 
policeman. The gates were closed at dark and the 
city became silent as the streets were not lighted. 
There is not enough light in the streets yet at night 
to hardly be noticed. The old patriarchal family 
system often prevails. Sometimes a family will 
be composed of a hundred people — several genera- 
tions. The following from Dugald Christie will 
give a glimpse of some of the strange customs of 
these people. 

He says : "There was in Mukden a wealthy fam- 
ily who had land in the country adjoining that of 
some poor people. A dispute arose over bound- 
aries and they went to law. Having money to back 
him the rich man won the case. The next day a 
son of the poor man committed suicide at the rich 
man's door and he had to compensate the parents 
heavily. When that was settled another son did 



A Great Unknown Land — Manchuria 41 

the same, calling on all to witness that he did this 
because of the injustice his parents had suffered 
at the hands of this man. This time a much heav- 
ier indemnity was demanded and after months of 
haggling it was paid. Then a third son killed him- 
self in like manner and the payment of the still 
further increased blood money reduced the once 
wealthy man to a state poorer than his rival. 
Again the law suit was heard and this time the 
country family won the case." 

Another Manchurian city of note is Harbin. 
This is located in the great agricultural district of 
the country. Twenty-five or thirty years ago this 
was open prairie, but one night two Russians 
pitched their tent on the spot that is now the cen- 
ter of the city. Like Jonah's gourd, the city almost 
grew up in a night. For years it was about the 
worst city to be found, there being at least one 
murder committed almost every day. After chang- 
ing trains at midnight and rambling around a few 
hours I would say that it is not filled with saints 
yet. During the Russian-Japanese war it w^as one 
of the great gateways, more than a million soldiers 
passing through it. 

From Harbin west one passes through the Kuig- 
an mountains. This is said to be the coldest place 
of like latitude on the globe. Here grows in abun- 
dance the Edelweiss, which is so rare and so prized 
in Switzerland. Mr. Taft, in "Strange Siberia," 
calls attention to the fact that one of the Manchu- 
rian towns here is named for Genghis Khan, who 
was one of the great military geniuses of the old 
days. He united the vast hordes of warring tribes 
of Siberia into one vast army and swept over this 
whole country like a mighty conqueror. Our 
American soldiers who were sent to this section 



42 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

of the Far East sure got a glimpse of Manchuria 
that they will never forget. 

Before the world war many of the Chinese and 
Manchus crossed the line and worked in the Rus- 
sian gold mines and grew rich, but they had a 
time getting their gold out of Russia without being 
discovered. But their cuteness is proverbial. Even 
Chinam.en die, and they as well as the Manchus 
must sleep their long sleep in their native land. 
In a certain Russian city it is said that these Chi- 
nese were paying great attention to the dead bodies 
of their kindred in preparing them for the journey 
back home. The Russians became suspicious and 
peeping through a keyhole at the embalming 
processes these policemen discovered that gold 
dust was blown from a tube into the dead man's 
skull. This let the cat out of the bag, for these 
Chinese w^ere making the bodies of the dead the 
carriers of gold, for as soon as the bodies reached 
home the gold was extracted. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Land of Sorrow — Siberia 

A WAY yonder in eastern Siberia, on the banks 
JlV of the Amur River, high on the projecting 
cliff stands a huge iron cross which can be seen 
many miles away. Upon this Christian emblem is 
inscribed one of the greatest sentences in all the 
literature of the world. Here it is : "Power lies not 
in force but in love." Strange it is indeed that such 
an emblem and such an inscription should be 
found in the wilds of this country. But many are 
the strange sights one beholds on a journey across 
this great lonely, strange, and sad land. Having 
crossed this countr^^ it is my purpose to recount 
some of the observations and experiences of the 
journey. 

But few people today realize the immensity of 
Siberia. You could take a map of the whole 
United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and 
add to it a map of Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, 
France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and 
Austria (before the war), Holland, Denmark, the 
Turkish Empire, Greece, Roumania, and Bulgaria, 
and lay all these together down on Siberia alone 
and have territory left. Nearly five thousand miles 
of the main line of the great Trans-Siberian rail- 
way are in this one country. 

The building of this railroad was a gigantic un- 
dertaking and its construction cost the Russian 
Government four hundred million dollars. With 
all our boasted American hustle it took twenty 
years to build the Canadian Pacific railway from 
coast to coast. The Trans-Siberian is more than 



44 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

twice as long and was completed in half that length 
of time. Before the war there was hardly ever an 
accident on this railway. Every verst (about two- 
thirds of a mile) there is a little guardhouse and 
there was always a man or woman, generally a 
woman, standing with a flag as the train passed. 
I crossed on the International Sleeping Car train. 
It took ten days and ten nights and the average 
speed was more than twenty miles per hour. 

The berths on this train were very comfortable. 
They were crosswdse of the car while ours are 
lengthwise. The train consisted of two first-class, 
two second-class sleepers, a diner and a baggage 
car. These international trains ran once a week 
each w^ay before the war and sometimes one had 
to purchase a ticket weeks in advance to go at a 
given time. When all berths w^ere sold those who 
had none simply had to wait a week for the next 
train. I was the lone American on the train all the 
way across. There were a number of Englishmen 
and many Frenchmen on board. 

My roommate v/as an old sea captain from Scot- 
land. He had been on the sea forty-six years. Un- 
fortunately his baggage was left at Harbin. He 
asked the chief of the train to wire back that it be 
forwarded on the next train, giving or rather off'er- 
ing a tip of a few shillings, but the chief would not 
give him any satisfaction. The next day the cap- 
tain tried again, offering a tip of an English pound. 
This had the desired effect. In a few days we dis- 
covered that the English Consul from Yokohama 
was on board and laid the matter before him. Not 
long after this the train chief came and apologized 
and gave back the tip. I have wondered many 
times whether or not the caiptain ever received his 
baggage. 



The Land of Sorrow — Siberia 45 

The dining car was a regular saloon on wheels. 
The first thirty minutes were spent by the waiters 
in soliciting orders for drinks. If you did not 
order anything to drink you were always served 
last. I had heard that it was almost impossible to 
get anything to eat on this train unless you were 
liberal in giving tips. So I started out to break 
the record — to cross Siberia without giving a tip 
on the diner. All went well for a couple of days. 
I was served all right. In fact, as long as I had 
the exact change everything was lovely. But when 
I gave the collector a bill he never came back with 
any change and I had to give it up. Such a feat 
as crossing Siberia without giving a tip in the diner 
could not be performed. The prices were not 
exorbitant, however, for one could get a fairly 
good meal for a dollar at that time. 

Some of the great rivers of the world are in 
Siberia. It is said that if all the steel bridges on 
this main line were placed end to end they would 
make a great steel structure more than thirty miles 
long. These were all built too by Russian engi- 
neers. Lake Baikal is a long, narrow body of 
water in the heart of Siberia. It is said to be the 
most elevated lake on the globe and has the dis- 
tinction of being the only body of fresh water in 
which seals will live. In some places no bottom 
has been found. When the railroad was first built 
trains were taken across this lake on gigantic 
ferries. 

As the winters are long and cold, great ice- 
breakers were built to take the trains across during 
the winter time. It is actually said that these ice- 
breakers would slowly plow their way through 
thirty-six inches of ice. During the Russian-Jap- 
anese war these were too slow so they laid down 



46 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

heavy steel rails on the ice and all winter long 
trains were speeded across on this ice railway. 
Some time ago I made this statement in a lecture 
and as soon as the last word was spoken a Russian 
came forward saying: "I was a soldier in the Rus- 
sian army and walked across this lake on the ice 
and saw them laying the rails at the time. It was 
then nearly sixty below zero." 

Siberia is the greatest wheat country on earth. 
All our great northwest, with Canada thrown in, is 
but a mere garden spot as compared with Siberia. 
There are multiplied millions of acres of the finest 
wheat fields in the world in this great country that 
are as yet untouched. The Siberian women make 
the best bread of any cooks the world around. It 
is as white as the driven snow and so good and 
nourishing that no one who eats it can ever forget 
the taste. 

Siberia is also one of the greatest dairy coun- 
tries in the world. When the war broke out Si- 
beria w^as actually supplying a large portion of 
Europe with dairy products. In two Siberian cities 
there were thirty-four large butter and dairy estab- 
lishments. The Russian Government sent a pro- 
fessor of agriculture around the world to study 
the science and art of buttermaking. The results 
of his investigation were published in pamphlet 
form and sent to buttermakers and agriculturists. 
It is said that sometimes a thousand tons of Si- 
berian butter have been delivered in London in a 
single week. It is also said that Great Britain was 
purchasing five million dollars worth of eggs per 
year from Siberia when the war broke out. 

I learned something of the superstition of the 
Siberian peasant when cream separators w^ere first 
introduced. It is said that when these hard w^ork- 



The Land of Sorrow — Siberia 47 

ing people were told of machines that would sepa- 
rate the cream from milk instantly they declared 
that only a machine with a devil in it could do 
such a thing. But an enterprising foreigner went 
ahead and built a factory and about the time he 
had some of the separators ready for delivery a 
mob gathered, wrecked the factory and smashed 
the separators into smithereens, declaring that 
they would not have machines with devils in them 
in their country. That was years ago, however, 
and they have long since learned to use and appre- 
ciate these machines. 

But the saddest sights I saw in Siberia were the 
trains loaded with exiles. These cars were not 
much better than stock cars and had iron bars 
across the windows. The sad faces within made 
one's heart ache to see them. As I rode in a com- 
fortable car with a good bed to sleep in it was hard 
to keep from thinking of these unfortunate people 
who w^ere herded like cattle in cold, dirty cars day 
after day and night after night for a month. Food 
was thrown to them almost as though they were 
pigs and at best this food was of the coarsest and 
most unsavorj^ kind. 

But their journey, packed in these unwarmed 
and unsanitary cars was so much better than what 
exiles had endured before the railroad was built, 
that one can hardly make a comparison. Then the 
exiles had to make the long four thousand mile 
journey on foot. It took about two years. Most of 
the convicts wore chains on their ankles that 
weighed five pounds and chains on their wrists 
that weighed two pounds. Sometimes these chains 
wore the flesh from the bones and the pain, as 
thej^ trudged along their way, was simply terrible. 
Men and women were herded in droves like cattle. 



48 Birdseye Vieivs of Far Lands 

They had to make so many miles each day through 
storm or sunshine. Often it was midnight before 
they reached the sheds in which were the sleep- 
ing benches. Here they had to lie down on bare 
planks without any covering. There was no ven- 
tilation in these sheds except a bare window or 
two in the gable. In summer they sweltered and 
in winter they nearly froze to death. 

As these unfortunate people slowly trudged 
along, the heartless guards on horseback whipped 
them and often prodded them with bayonets. 
Sometimes both men and women fell fainting and 
dying along the wayside. As two were nearly 
always chained together, the living was unlocked 
from the dead, the body kicked out of the way and 
even left unburied. In the heat of summer the 
dust nearly suffocated them and in the late autumn 
and early spring (they stopped in winter quarters 
in the coldest months), they often floundered along 
through mud nearly knee deep. Often the mud 
was frozen in the morning and their feet would 
break through. Perhaps their shoes were com- 
pletely worn out, but no mercy was shown them 
and they had to make their way barefooted. 

There was one thing the guards could not do, 
however, and that was to keep them still. As they 
went on their way they kept up a kind of a wail 
that was said to be the saddest chant that human 
ears ever heard. For miles and miles this mourn- 
ful wail could be heard by the few people who 
lived in villages along the way. Sometimes, how- 
ever, these villages were fifty or a hundred miles 
apart. But this wail was kept up continually. 
Every plan imaginable was used to stop it, but this 
could not be done and the guards and officers grew 
accustomed to it and let it go. No wonder that 



The Land of Sorrow — Siberia 49 

even yet in Siberia the call of the milkmaid is 
something like the wail of the exiles. 

One of the most thrilling events during the war 
was the opening of the Siberian prison doors in 
the spring of 1917, when more than one hundred 
thousand exiles walked out as free men and 
women. In the great Irkutsk prison a company of 
men were watching some of their fellow prisoners 
being flogged when a man appeared at the door 
saying: "Russia is a republic and you are all free." 
Instantly all was excitement. The officers fled for 
their lives. Even the prison blacksmiths fled, for 
they had welded the shackles on thousands of 
prisoners and they feared vengeance. Other 
smiths were pressed into service and were com- 
pelled to work all night long cutting these iron 
chains. Many were chained to wheelbarrows and 
of course could not get away until their irons were 
broken. A committee of public safety was formed 
at once and precautions taken. A banquet was 
prepared in the dismissed governor's palace and 
sixty men whose chains had not been cut loose sat 
down at the table with their chains rattling. 

In one place the priest, while performing his 
duties in the church, heard the news and an- 
nounced it. Fifty men rushed out to kill the local 
police captain who had been a regular tyrant. As 
they came to his home they were met by the cap- 
tain's ten-year-old daughter, who stood in front of 
her father and calmly said : "You will have to kill 
me first," and thus she saved his life. 

In five days after the revolution, six thousand 
exiles had reached Irkutsk from other prisons. By 
the way, Irkutsk is the capital of eastern Siberia 
and here the greatest prisons were located. It is 
said that as many as one hundred thousand prison- 



50 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

ers have been in the great prisons in and around 
this city at one time. There were no trains for 
these freed exiles and they camped along the rail- 
road track. Every day the company became larger. 
At one time it was said that fifty thousand sledges 
were rushing toward the railroad as fast as horses, 
dogs and reindeer could drag them. The snow 
was already melting and they were determined to 
get to the railroad before it was too late. 

Those who think the great Russian Empire is 
nothing but cold, bleak, barren waste, will have to 
think again. In 1913 there were eleven million 
acres planted in potatoes, five and one-half million 
acres of flax and hemp and nearly two million 
acres in cotton. They even had one hundred and 
fifty thousand acres in tobacco. In all there were 
in cultivation nearly four hundred million acres 
of land. In 1914 Russia and Siberia possessed 
thirty-five million head of horses, fifty-two million 
head of cattle, seventy-two million sheep, and fif- 
teen million head of hogs. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Home of Bolshevism — Russia 

OF ALL the countries in Europe, conditions in 
Russia are perhaps most deplorable. With 
the granarj^ of the world her people have the least 
food. A few years ago her laws were the most 
rigid of all countries, now she is nearest without 
law of any of them. With all her boundless re- 
sources, she is as helpless as a child. Like poor 
old blind Samson, she has lost her strength and is 
a pitiful sight to behold. 

But the purpose of this article is not to recount 
the horrors the war brought to Russia. I would 
much rather tell something about the people as I 
saw them just before the war, and their country'- 
and cities in times of peace. Some day these peo- 
ple will have a stable government. They have 
suffered for a long time, but out of it all will come 
a purified people and a government in which the 
people will have some rights and privileges v>'orth 
while. The writer of these lines does not pose as 
a prophet, but will sa}^ that in twenty-five years 
Russia will have the best government in Europe. 

The Russian people are a race of farmers. 
When the war broke out eighty-five per cent of 
the people lived in the country. Although a nation 
having one-sixth of the earth's surface, yet she has 
only a few large cities. It is actually said that 
years ago people had to be chained in the cities 
to keep them from moving to the country. 

The people, as a rule, are honest-hearted, hard- 
working people, who have never had a chance. 
They are ignorant and often superstitious. They 
have been used to hardship and cruelty. In the 
old days a man was beaten three hours a day for 
debt and after a month sold as a slave if no one 



52 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

came to his rescue. Thieves and other criminals 
were hanged, beheaded, broken on a wheel, 
drowned under the ice or whipped to death. "Sor- 
cerers were roasted alive in cages; traitors were 
tortured by iron hooks which tore their sides into 
a thousand pieces; false coiners had to swallow 
molten metal," says one writer. 

Woman was considered the property of man 
and her glory was to obey her husband as a slave 
obeys his master. No eyes could look upon her 
face and she was shut up like a prisoner. They 
used to think that if a husband beat his wife it 
was the sign he loved her. The Russian proverb 
says : "I love thee like my soul, but I beat thee like 
my jacket." 

Never will I forget the time spent in Moscow. 
The great center of the city is the Kremlin Palace 
and at the time of my visit it contained riches un- 
told. Of course, the Bolshevists have looted it 
long before this. In it at that time was the largest 
gun ever made before the war, but it had never 
been fired. Also the largest bell ever cast was 
there, but this had never been rung. In front of 
this palace is the famous Red Square, and this has 
no doubt been red with blood many times during 
these terrible years of Bolshevist rule. If the very 
stones upon which people walk could speak, a 
wave of horror would sweep around the world. 

Perhaps the most curious church in the world 
is that of Saint Basil the Blessed, which is in the 
city of Moscow. It has nearly a dozen spires most 
curiously built and no one seeing it can ever forget 
it. It is said that the eyes of the Italian architect 
who built it were put out so he could never build 
another like it. The Russian people are very re- 
ligious and Moscow is their sacred city. At the 
sight of the glittering crosses the peasants coming 



The Home of Bolshevism — Russia 53 

into the city for the first time would often fall 
upon their faces and weep. 

This sacred city has passed through some hor- 
rible times. Famine has raged and the ravages of 
hunger caused parents to eat the flesh of their own 
children. Pestilence at one time stalked through 
the city like a mighty conqueror and a hundred 
and twenty thousand people perished before it 
could be checked. Nearly the entire city has gone 
up in smoke on more than one occasion and yet 
it still lives. When I was there its streets were 
ablaze with electric lights at night and thronged 
with shopping multitudes by day, but all this is 
changed at this time. 

If we can believe the historian, orgies have taken 
place in this city that would make it, for the time 
being, a rival of Hades itself. When the Russians 
turn against a man their hatred knows no bounds. 
In one case they caught a pretender for the throne 
and almost continuously for three days they tor- 
tured him in every imaginable way, shape and 
form. After he was finally killed they were so 
afraid that he might come to life that they took his 
body, burned it to ashes, loaded them in a cannon 
and fired it, scattering them to the four winds. 

One of the empresses of Russia became enraged 
at one of the princes whose wife had died and she 
compelled him to marry an old ugly woman whose 
nickname was "Pickled Pork." One historian 
says: "The marriage festival was celebrated with 
great pomp: representatives of every tribe and 
nation in the Empire took part, with native cos- 
tumes and musical instruments: some rode on 
camels, some on deer, others were drawn by oxen, 
dogs and swine. The bridal couple were borne 
in a cage on an elephant's back. A palace was 



54 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

built entirely of ice for their reception. It was 
ornamented with ice pillars and statues, and 
lighted by panes of thin ice. The door and win- 
dow posts were painted to represent green marble : 
droll pictures on linen were placed in ice frames. 
All the furniture, the chairs, the mirrors, even the 
bridal couch, were ice. By an ingenious use of 
naphtha the ice chandeliers were lighted and the 
ice logs on the ice grates were made to burn! At 
the gates two dolphins of ice poured forth foun- 
tains of flame: vessels filled with frosty flowers, 
trees with foliage and birds, and a life-sized ele- 
phant with a frozen Persian on its back adorned 
the j'^ard. Ice cannon and mortars guarded the 
doors and fired a salute. The bride and groom 
had to spend the night in their glacial palace." 

For centuries the common people of Russia were 
afraid to open their mouths. Detectives were 
everywhere and half of the people exiled to Si- 
beria had no idea what they had committed. One 
of the secret service men might visit a peasant 
home disguised as a tramp or agent. Allowed into 
the humble home he would examine the books on 
the table if any were there, and should he find a 
sentence tabooed by the government, the farmer 
who gave the stranger a place to eat and sleep 
would likely be exiled, although he had never read 
a line in the book. 

I have seen these detectives on trains, at depots, 
in hotels, always watching everybody. No pro- 
prietor of a hotel would keep a stranger over night 
without the guest's passport in his possession. One 
of these secret service men might come in at mid- 
night and if he found a stranger or even a name 
on the register without an accompanying passport, 
the landlord might have to go to prison and of 



The Home of Bolshevism — Russia 55 

course they took no chances. As soon as I reg- 
istered at a hotel in Moscow the landlord had to 
have my passport in his possession. 

All things considered it is not at all surprising 
that when the restraint was removed the people 
went to the greatest possible extreme. It is not 
surprising that they all wanted to talk and speech- 
ify. Every man had some grievance or something 
to talk about. While the peasants were honest and 
trusted each other, yet there have developed so 
many traitors that now they do not know who they 
can trust. The great mass of people are like a lot 
of sheep without a shepherd and can be led or 
driven in any direction. Of all people, they are 
prehaps most to be pitied. 

A Russian gentleman recently expressed his con- 
viction to the writer that the only hope for the 
country is in the church people. They are very 
religious and the Orthodox church was rich in 
priceless treasure and lands. But the Bolshevists 
looted and robbed the churches, which of course 
enraged the people. They were held in check by 
alluring promises, but these promises were not ful- 
filled and their eyes are now opened and they will 
rise up, so this man hopes, and overthrow Bolshe- 
vism. One thing is certain and that is that the 
Bolshevist leaders have recently made all kinds of 
concessions to the people. 

As the darkest days in the history of the Chosen 
Race in Bible times was when "every man did 
what was right in his own eyes," so these Russian 
folks have been passing through just such a time. 
There has not been any law to speak of and every 
man has been doing as he pleases with everything 
he could get his hands on. But as Russia has pro- 
duced some of the master minds of the ages some 



56 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

of us believe that some of these times a leader will 
appear who will bring order out of chaos. As a 
rule, in the days agone, when the people of a great 
nation were really ready for a mighty step forward 
the good Lord raised up a man to lead them. 

Passing the great estate of Tolstoi I could not 
help thinking of one of his marvelous word pic- 
tures and as it concerns everyone of us it will not 
be out of place to call attention to it here. As the 
story goes a youth had fallen heir to his father's 
estate and this taste of wealth made him crazy for 
the lands adjoining the little homestead. One fine 
morning this young man was greeted in the high- 
way by a fine looking nobleman who said he had 
taken a liking to him and had decided to give him 
all the land he could cover during one day. As 
they stood at the corner of the little homestead at 
the grave of his father the stranger said to the 
young man : "You may start now and walk all day, 
but at sundown you must be back here at your 
father's grave." 

Without even stopping to tell his wife the good 
news, or bid her and their little child good-bye, the 
young man started. At first thought he decided to 
cover a tract six miles square which would mean a 
walk of twenty-four miles, but he had only gotten 
well started when the plan was enlarged to a 
square of nine miles. The morning was so cool 
and fine and he felt so strong that he increased it 
to twelve miles and still later he made it a square 
of fifteen miles, which would mean a walk of sixty 
miles before sundown. By noon he had made 
the thirty miles but so great was his fear of failure 
he decided not to stop for lunch. An hour later 
he saw an old man at a wayside spring, but felt 



The Home of Bolshevism — Russia 57 

that he must not stop even for a drink of water 
and rushed on his way. 

By the middle of the afternoon he had discarded 
his coat and a httle later threw away his shirt. An 
hour before sunset it was a race for life. His heart 
had almost stopped beating and his eyes began to 
bulge from their sockets. As the sun touched the 
horizon he was still many rods from the starting 
point. With all the strength of both body and soul 
he lunged forward and just as the sun went out of 
sight he staggered across the line and fell into the 
arms of the stranger who was there to meet him, 
but when he fell he was dead. 

"I promised him," said the stranger, "all the 
ground he could cover. Strictly speaking, it is 
about two feet wide and six feet long. And I drew 
the line here at his father's grave because I thought 
he would rather have the land he could cover close 
to his father than to have it anywhere else." 
"Then the stranger — death — slipped away," says 
Dr. Hillis, who tells the story, saying: "I always 
keep my pledge." So they buried the man with 
the land-hunger. 

The Russian people have just gotten a taste of 
liberty and are as crazy as was the man with the 
land-hunger. All hope and trust that they will see 
their condition before the nation comes to a death 
struggle, but they have passed the meridian and 
entered the dangerous part of the day and if the 
leader does not soon come who can stop their on- 
ward sweep, they will be in the last great struggle 
and the death rattle will be heard. But terrible 
as the situation is at this writing, however, there 
are some signs of a better day, and as long as there 
is life there is hope. Some of us still believe that 
the day will come when Russia will be a mighty 
and powerful nation. 



CHAPTER VIII 
The Nation That Conquers the Sea — Holland 

WE READ in ancient history that Xerxes 
whipped the sea, but this chapter will give a 
glimpse of a nation that conquers the sea. A mil- 
lion acres of the best land in Holland have actually 
been rescued from the water, and at this hour a 
large lake is being drained which means that hun- 
dreds of thousands of acres will soon be rescued 
from the sea and be made to blossom as the rose. 

The country of Holland is about the size of the 
state of Maryland. One-fourth of its entire area is 
below the sea level, and its great dykes were they 
placed end to end, would make an immense dam 
more than fifteen hundred miles long and in some 
places from thirty to sixty feet high. Almost the 
entire country is a network of canals. A single 
one of these canals cost more than fifteen million 
dollars and it is less than fifty miles in length. 

The faith of these Holland people in times of 
adversity is one of the wonders of history. For a 
hundred years they struggled against powerful 
Spain, but their faith saved them. It is said that 
at the siege of Leyden they were reduced to such 
desperate straits that all they had to eat was dogs 
and cats. In derision they were called "dog and 
cat eaters." They replied to their enemies: "As 
long as you hear the bark of a dog or the mew of 
a cat the city holds. When these are gone we will 
devour out left arms, retaining the right to defend 
our homes and our freedom. When all are gone 
we will set fire to the city and with our wives and 
children perish rather than see our families de- 
stroyed and our religion desecrated." 



The Nation That Conquers the Sea — Holland 59 

Think of it! A country one-half of which is 
below the level of the water, some of it sixteen feet 
lower than the ocean, which is only a few miles 
away! What w^atchfulness and anxiety bordering 
upon fear must occupy every moment, both day 
and night! In a single century there were thirty- 
five great inundations which literally swallowed 
up several hundred thousand people. Instead of 
being disheartened, like ants, they went to work at 
once to rebuild the dykes, and with the aid of hun- 
dreds of gigantic wdndmills pumped the water 
back into the sea. 

These wdndmills are not only used to pump 
water, but they saw wood, grind corn, crush seeds, 
make paper, and do about everj^thing else. While 
they are imperilled all the time by water, they 
make the water serve them in numerous ways. 
Their fences are ditches filled with water. How 
their cattle and horses have been trained to stay in, 
a small lot surrounded by narrow ditches filled 
with water which they could easily jump over, is a 
myster^% but every visitor to Holland has seen it 
with his own eyes. 

These Dutch people are great farmers and stock 
raisers. As their country has no minerals, the 
people depend upon agriculture more perhaps 
than in any other part of the world. Supporting a 
population of four hundred and seventy people to 
the square mile, every foot of the land of course is 
tilled carefully. The main agricultural product is 
potatoes, of which they raise about one hundred 
million bushels per annum. Then come oats, 
twenty million bushels, rye, fifteen million and 
about a third as much wheat. 

The Hollanders build ships, refine sugar, dredge 
oysters, distill liquor and brew beer. They manu- 



60 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

facture carpets, leather and paper goods, make 
chocolate, cut diamonds as well as produce gold 
and silver articles and pottery. The farmer uses 
his cow like one of the family. He keeps her in 
the house when the weather is cold, washes and 
combs her hair more often than his own, and keeps 
her room as clean as the parlor. She chews her 
cud contentedly and the only thing about her 
which is tied up is her tail, which is generally fas- 
tened to a beam above to keep it from getting 
soiled. Of course, milk, butter and cheese are not 
a small part of the living of these people. Often in 
a Holland home the sitting room, dining room and 
sleeping room are one and the same. People often 
sleep in bunks one above the other like berths on 
a ship or sleeping car. 

The great bird in Holland is the stork, which is 
kept and given a home because of the service ren- 
dered in keeping down toads and frogs. The peo- 
ple who live in the lowest ground make nests for 
the storks upon posts erected for the purpose, and 
almost every Dutch city has a pet colony of these 
birds. The Dutch folk-lore tells of the tragedy of 
the stork colony away back in the fifteenth cen- 
tury which occurred during the breeding season. 
The town of Delft cought fire and when the older 
storks made ready for flight their offspring were 
too young to fly and too heavy to be carried, and 
rather than leave their young, the old birds went 
back to their nests and perished. 

The two great recreation amusements that 
everybody engages in are cycling and skating. 
Roads are good so that the former can be practiced 
the year around, while the latter, of course, can 
only be indulged in during the winter time. These 
people become so skilled on the ice that they can 



The Nation That Conquers the Sea— Holland 61 

beat an express train, and to skate a hundred miles 
in an afternoon is an ordinary excursion. Some 
years ago a record of four miles in five minutes 
was established which is "going some" on skates. 

In the beginning of winter when the skating sea- 
son opens, the young men and maidens have a 
great time going to the city of Gouda. The young 
men go to buy long pipes and bring them home 
safely in fheir mouths or pockets. The fair maid- 
ens try to waylay them and break these pipes. 
Likewise the maidens purchase brittle cakes and 
attempt to carry them home in bags without break- 
ing them up, and the young men endeavor to 
knock the bags from their hands and thus, "break 
the cake." They all have a gay time. 

Skating is ruled by a sort of a national society. 
The fee is so small that everyone can join it. This 
society decides when skating is safe, marks the 
routes and employs sweepers to keep these high- 
ways clear from snow, etc. Everyone must obey 
the rules laid down by this society, consequently 
accidents are rare. One week each year they have 
a great festival called the "Kermis," which is not 
unlike the old-fashioned carnival in this country. 
All kinds of amusements are engaged in and all 
have a jolly time. St. Nicholas Day, which occurs 
on December fifth, is also a great day in Holland, 
especially for the children. 

The largest city in Holland is Amsterdam, which 
contains more than one-half million people. This 
is a walled city, but the walls are water in the 
shape of canals. There are four of them, the out- 
ermost being called the Single or "Girdle." Across 
these canals are smaller canals running diago- 
nally and the city itself is as though built on a 
thousand islands. 



62 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

These larger canals are almost filled with ships 
of various sizes and boats and barges fill the 
smaller ones. The city has the appearance of 
being built on the water, canals serving the pur- 
poses of streets. The ground used to be a great 
marsh and the entire city is practically built on 
piles which are driven down sometimes eighty feet. 

One great palace in the city stands upon four- 
teen thousand piles. One would think the build- 
ings would collapse in the course of time, and some 
of them are all out of shape, but the people are so 
used to seeing the buildings lean, almost like the 
Leaning Tower of Pisa, that they think nothing 
about it. Once in awhile the road will give way 
under a heavily loaded truck, but they pry the load 
out, repair the roadway, and go ahead as though 
the highway were built upon solid rock. 

That the people of Amsterdam are religious is 
shown by the fact that there are many large 
churches in the city. The front of the great palace 
called the Dam has a hundred windows and only 
one little insignificant entrance. It has been called 
"the palace without a door." Just across the 
square is the Exchange with a great portico sup- 
ported by seventeen columns. Some have called 
this "A door without a house." 

Like New York, Amsterdam has its Ghetto, in 
which more than sixty thousand Jews are packed 
almost like sardines in a box, and most of these 
live in the direst poverty and misery imaginable. 
However, just beside this Ghetto live wealthy Jew- 
ish families, and one of the great synagogues is so 
magnificent that they claim it represents the Tem- 
ple of Solomon. 

As noted above the gigantic task of draining the 
Zuyder Zee has already been started. This great 



The Nation That Conquers the Sea— Holland 63 

lake is a hundred miles long and half as wide, and 
used to be a great forest. Between seven and eight 
hundred years ago, this forest and some better- 
lands consisting of farm lands and cities, were 
destroyed by the River Chim. A writer in the 
Scientific American, quoted in the Literary Digest, 
says : 

"Then Neptune looked down with longing eyes 
for his own. About the middle of the thirteenth 
century, the North Sea broke through the upper 
sand dunes and swept over the land. Hundreds of 
villages with their inhabitants were engulfed and 
destroyed. Geographical continuity was obliter- 
ated, and Holland found herself cut in two by an 
ocean eighty-five miles long from north to south, 
and from ten to forty-five broad. It proved, more- 
over, quite as treacherously dangerous a sea as 
that which divided her from Britain." 

The capital city of Holland contains more than 
a quarter of a million people. Perhaps the most 
outstanding building in The Hague is the Palace 
of Peace. It was dedicated August 28, 1913. Some- 
thing like twenty countries contributed materials 
for this great building. The granite in the base of 
the walls came from Norw^ay and Sweden, the 
marble in the great corridor is Italian; Holland 
supplied the steps in the great stairway, and the 
group of statuary at the foot of this stairway came 
from Argentina. 

The stained glass in the windows of the Court 
of Law came from Great Britain, and the rose- 
wood in the paneling of the Council Chamber is 
Brazil's contribution. Turkey and Roumania each 
supplied carpets, Switzerland furnished the clock, 
and Belgium the iron work on the door at the 
main entrance. Our own contribution was a group 



64 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

of statuary in marble and bronze at the first land- 
ing of the great stairway. Russia and China fur- 
nished vases, Japan sent silken curtains, and 
France furnished a magnificent painting. Thus 
the nations builded together and we all hope the 
dream for which this Palace of Peace stands will 
soon become a reality. We are glad that the build- 
ing is now open again. 

For more than four years Holland occupied per- 
haps the most difficult position in which any coun- 
try was ever placed. Every day of that time she 
was between the "devil and the deep sea." Com- 
pelled to be ready for invasion every moment, yet 
trying to remain strictly neutral, she had the job 
of feeding hundreds of thousands of refugees. 
These were anxious months and years, but the 
Dutch did most remarkably well and kept their 
heads above water all the time. No people were 
more happy to see peace come although they were 
compelled to harbor the greatest enemy civiliza- 
tion ever had. 



CHAPTER IX 
The Nation That the World Honors — Belgium 

DURING the world war the eyes of the world 
were upon Belgium and it is quite fitting that 
an article be devoted to this little country whom 
the world honors. Although one of the smallest of 
all the independent nations yet before the inva- 
sion this little country stood eighth in wealth and 
sixth in export and import trade among the na- 
tions. Texas is more then twenty times as large as 
Belgium. Although not nearly all her land is 
under cultivation yet she supported seven and a 
half million people and before the war it is said 
she had no paupers. 

This little country has been called the "balance 
wheel of the world's trade." The city of Antwerp 
is said to have forty miles of quays — ahead of New 
York City. When the war broke out Belgium had 
just completed a ten million dollar canal and had 
spent eighty million dollars on her waterways. 
Her commercial and industrial interests were 
amazing. She had one hundred and eighty fac- 
tories for the manufacture of arms alone. A single 
engine factory in Liege turned out two thousand 
large engines complete, annually. The zinc foun- 
dries and cycle works of this one city are world 
famous. 

Belgium had the cheapest railroad fare of any 
country on earth. Twenty-four of her thirty-two 
lines were government owned. One could pur- 
chase a third-class ticket, good for five days going 
anywhere over these lines for $2.35. One could 
ride to his work on the railway train twenty miles 



66 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

and back each day for a whole week for the in- 
significant sum of thirty-seven and one-half cents. 
This made it possible for even the poorest people 
to travel and many of them did. The city of Brus- 
sels had two hundred passenger trains entering 
and leaving the two great depots every twenty- 
four hours. 

Belgium gave the world the greatest example 
of thrift ever known. Surely, if ever a nation 
needed such an example, we did and do. Belgium 
could live well from the crumbs that fall from our 
tables. Were the American people as thrifty as 
the Belgians, we could save all the war cost us^ 
including the soldiers' bonus, in a generation. 
There, everybody works, even father. While the 
people are poor, yet, as noted above, it was a 
country without paupers and will soon be so again. 

The government paid interest on savings and 
encouraged even the poorest to have a savings 
account. Such an account could be started with 
one franc and could be opened at any post office. 
Our thrift stamp idea came from Belgium. Th^ 
farmer or working man could buy a small plot of 
ground, build a little home for his family, be in- 
sured against sickness or accident, even though he 
hardly had a dollar to start with. The government 
would back him and he could borrow money from 
the national savings bank system. 

The Belgians are said to have the best courts in 
existence. With a single judge in the Supreme 
Court, cases are reviewed quickly while every- 
thing is fresh in mind and witnesses and all other 
evidence is easily obtained, and the decisions of 
the lower courts either reversed or sustained at 
once without any lost motion whatever. The lower 



The Nation That the World Honors — Belgium 67 

courts are open for the settlement of all disputes. 
The judge cross-questions both sides without any 
lawyers to interfere and the poorest wage earner 
can have his wrongs righted without a cent's ex- 
pense. The assistance of an attorney is hardly 
ever needed and not one decision in a hundred is 
appealed. 

The contribution of Belgium to farming and 
stock raising has been immense. Most of the soil 
is thin and has been used for centuries, and yet 
she raises more than twice as much wheat per acre 
as the Dakotas and harvests as much as $250 worth 
of flax per acre. A few centuries ago the district 
between Antwerp and Ghent was a barren moor 
called Weasland. Today every inch of this land is 
cultivated and is dotted by some of the finest farms 
in Belgium. This entire sandy district was cov- 
ered, "cartload by cartload, spadeful by spadeful 
with good soil brought from elsewhere." It is now^ 
like a great flower garden and in fact much of it is 
flower beds. The city of Ghent is known as the 
flower city of Europe, there being a hundred nur- 
sery gardens and half as many horticultural estab- 
lishments in the suburbs of this one city. 

A marvelous thing about Belgian agriculture is 
that they rotate the soil rather than the crops. 
Their methods of intensive farming are so won- 
derful that if North and South Dakota could be 
farmed as is Belgian soil, nearly all the people in 
the United States could move to these two states 
and be fed. Belgium is a land of very small farms 
and it is said that the poorest agricultural laborer 
has a better chance to become a land owner than 
in most any other country. Until auto trucks made 
their appearance the great drays of London and 
New York were drawn by Belgian horses. Belgian 



68 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

stallions often take the blue ribbons at our great 
state fairs and our farmers have found that the 
Belgian breeds of stock are second to none. Even 
Belgian hares are most prolific and most profitable 
of any breed of rabbits in this country today. 

The contribution in architecture of this little 
country to the world has been so great and her 
churches and public buildings so stately that Bel- 
gium has been called, "The Jewel box of Europe." 
Of course, many of her great cathedrals and public 
buildings were damaged or destroyed, but they 
will, in a large measure, at least, be restored. 

The art of Belgian painters is world famous and 
graces the finest galleries in both Europe and 
America. Many of the paintings of Rubens and 
other master artists are almost priceless. As lace 
makers the women of Belgium are famous the 
world around. From early morning until late at 
night these toilers sit in their low chairs and the 
skill with which they* shoot the little thread-bob- 
bins back and forth across the cushions is inde- 
scribable. Neither men nor women in Belgium are 
overly much given to amusements. They work 
with all their might, but when the national holi- 
days come they abandon themselves to the amuse- 
ments for the moment and have a most enjoyable 
time. 

While many are illiterate, the Belgians are giv- 
ing much attention to schools these times. Even 
while they were guests of France, with their gov- 
ernment located at Havre, they established twenty- 
four schools for the children and a single woman 
had more than five thousand pupils under her care 
and direction. They also established large schools 
at that place for disabled soldiers and many of 
them became not only skilled workers, but in- 



The Nation That the World Honors— Belgium 69 

ventors. One of these disabled men invented a 
process to make artificial limbs out of waste paper 
and it is said that these limbs are the best made. 
Many of these legless soldiers with artificial limbs 
can walk so well that one would never imagine 
that they had been wounded. 

Providence seems to have made Belgium the 
great battlefield of Europe. Nearly every great 
general of European history has fought on Bel- 
gian soil. When the Spaniards looted Belgian 
cities and set up the inquisition it seemed as 
though the very imps of the lower regions were 
turned loose. I have looked upon many of the in- 
struments of torture that can still be seen in Euro- 
pean museums and they were even more terrible 
than anything used in the late war. Again and 
again has Belgian soil been drenched with blood. 
Only a little more than one hundred years ago the 
hosts of Napoleon and Wellington decided the 
destiny of nations at the battle of Waterloo. 

Here was this great hive of industry, with the 
wheels of her factories humming and her people 
happy, industrious and contented up to that fate- 
ful day in August, 1914. No people were more 
loyal to their ideals, more trustful of others or 
more anxious to serve humanity than these honest- 
hearted, hard-working people. They felt secure, 
for the treaty which protected them had been 
signed by all the nations around them. This treaty 
had been held sacred for more than eighty years 
and was to last as long as time. It had held them 
secure during the great crisis of 1870-1871 and 
when the war cloud gathered in Austria and Servia 
they felt secure. 

Soon, however, it became plain that Germany 
had been planning for years to crush this little 



70 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

country like an egg shell. Four double-track lines 
of railway ha^ been built up to tKe Belgian border. 
Miles of concrete platforms had been built, but no 
suspicions had been aroused. When the enemy 
started across Belgium he had better maps of the 
country than any Belgian had ever seen. At once 
many Germans in Belgium left their homes si- 
lently and the surprise of Belgian neighbors can 
be better imagined than described when they saw 
their old friends coming back with the enemy's 
army. They had been spies all these years. 

When the great siege guns were brought from 
their hiding places in the Krupp factories into 
Belgium, the foundations for them were already 
there. These guns were so heavy that the London 
Times stated Ihat it took thirteen traction engines 
to pull a single one of them. They threw shells 
that weighed almost a ton twenty miles and a 
single one of them would destroy a building as 
large as our own national capital building in 
Washington. So accurately had these foundations 
been placed that scarcely a single shell was wasted. 

It is said that years ago some so-called German 
university men asked the Belgian Government for 
permission to study the geology of their country. 
This permission was granted freely. But these 
were mostly military men and spent months in- 
vestigating and surveying and marking certain 
places. Once more these men came to the Belgian 
Government stating that they wished to study the 
formation of rocks and soil which would necessi- 
tate digging into the earth and as they did not wish 
to be bothered by the public, asked permission to 
build barricades around the places where they 
worked. Their request was granted instantly and 



The Nation That the World Honors — Belgium 71 

by this means they built the foundations for these 
great siege guns. 

Finally the fateful day came. Germany told 
Belgium that she intended going across her terri- 
tory anyway and if she would allow this to be 
done peaceably she would pay her double price 
for everything destroyed; that it would be to her 
best interests to allow this and that she might have 
twelve hours to think it over. In the darkest hours 
of the w^ar, when it seemed that the Germans 
would be victorious, I heard the Belgian minister 
in Washington say in an address : "Yes, they gave 
us twelve hours to decide, but thej^ gave us eleven 
hours and fiftv-nine minutes too much time." As 
long as time, it will be remembered to the glory of 
Belgium that she told Germany instantly to stay 
upon her own territory; that the world would 
never say that Belgium went back upon her word; 
that if war came she would remain neutral as in 
the treaty she had agreed to do. The minister re- 
ferred to above also said in this darkest hour: 
"They now have all but three hundred square 
miles of our territorj% but what will it profit a 
man though he gain the whole world and lose his 
own soul.' We have lost our property, but we have 
saved our soul, and if it were to do over again we 
would do exactly the same thing." 

Brave little Belgium! For four and one half 
years she stood bleeding and with her head bawed 
in sorrow! Her homes were destroyed, her old 
men and women shot down like dogs, her women 
outraged, her youths and maidens enslaved, her 
little children misused, but Belgium still lives, and 
always will live in the hearts of men and women 
wherever civilization is known! Her King and 
Queen were brave and heroic through all those 



72 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

horrible times; her church leaders could not be 
bought or sold, and her common people were true 
as steel. As a nation she blundered in days agone, 
but what nation has not made mistakes? Belgium 
saved democracy for a thousand years and is today 
the nation that the whole world honors. 



CHAPTER X 

A Glimpse of America's Friend — France 

ALTHOUGH great in history, France is but a 
xIl small country. It is interesting to note that 
all France could be placed in the state of Texas 
and there would be room enough left for Belgium, 
Holland, Denmark and Switzerland, one in each 
corner. Even then, Delaware and the District of 
Columbia could be put in for good measure and 
the Lone Star State would still have more than 
eight hundred square miles to spare. 

About half of the people of France depend 
wholly upon agriculture for their living. Instead 
of living on farms as we do they live in small vil- 
lages. Their farms are very small, generally run- 
ning from two to fifteen acres. As a rule, the soil 
is thin and unproductive, but with their patient 
toil, careful methods of farming and a very liberal 
use of fertilizer they raise abundant crops. Just 
about half of the soil of France is tilled and about 
one-eighth is used for grazing while all the famous 
vineyards of this country cover but about four per 
cent of the ground. The balance is in forests and 
streams, highways, canals, and railways. 

When the war broke out there were about four 
million French families who owned their homes 
and a thriftier and more industrious people could 
hardly be found. In 1871, when the heartless Bis- 
marck insisted on having a one billion dollar in- 
demnity, besides the provinces of Alsace and Lor- 
raine, he thought he had the people of France 
throttled for a generation, but to his very great 
amazement every dollar of this huge sum was paid 



74 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

in less than three years. This fact is but an indica- 
tion that the French are a race of savers. 

A silent revolution in the habits of the peasant 
people has been the outcome of the war. Ages ago 
an uprising took the land away from wealthy own- 
ers and gave it to the peasants. A few years later 
Napoleon had enacted or rather established a 
Code by which a man's property was equally di- 
vided between his children. Thus, if a man died 
leaving four children and an eight-acre farm, it 
was divided into four strips of two acres each. 
Then, in the course of time, one of these children 
died leaving four children, his two-acre farm was 
divided into four strips of a half acre each. 

Thus a great portion of the land is cut up into 
little strips and gardens. Through the intermar- 
riage of children a family might own several of 
these strips of land, often miles from each other. 
This often brought complications and made it im- 
possible to introduce modern farm implements 
and do away with much of the drudgery of peasant 
life. 

This is one advantage that grew out of the war 
in many places. In the devastated areas all land- 
marks were often obliterated and in many cases 
the government brought in tractors and plowed 
great fields which before the war were hundreds 
of little farms and gardens. Then, too, many of 
these peasants became greedy, selfish individual- 
ists. Each man worked by himself and for him- 
self and the idea of co-operation was almost un- 
known. No ordinary farmer ever became able to 
have modern farm implements himself and they 
never dreamed that several of them could go to- 
gether and purchase a binder, a thresher or trac- 
tor. Their one standby was the hoe and not only 



A Glimpse of America's Friend — France 75 

the man but his wife and children often had to 
work from daylight until dark to keep the wolf 
from the door. 

Since the war a new day has dawned for the 
French peasantry. It was very hard for some of 
them to give up their old notions and customs, but 
it meant a new order for all who were in the path- 
way of the war. While the city of Paris has been 
always known as the Gay City, yet the people in 
the country did not enjoy life in any such way. 
They had no amusements, no daily papers, and 
in some places no songs. The famous Man with 
the Hoe is a picture of the French farmer. In 
many of the rebuilt villages now they have amuse- 
ments and movies and in many cases public li- 
braries have been started. 

It is said that in many of the farmhouses of the 
French peasantry may be seen hanging little col- 
ored prints representing the main professions. At 
the top of a stairway stands a king with the motto : 
"I rule you all," on a step below is a priest who 
says: "I pray for you all;" still farther down 
stands the soldier who says: "I defend you all;" 
but at the bottom of the stairway is the peasant 
whose motto is: "I feed you all." The French 
peasant seemed to take this for granted and never 
imagined that while doing it he might have advan- 
tages and pleasures that would help to make life 
worth living. 

Of course, there are great industries and indus- 
trial centers in France. The city of Lille was, be- 
fore the war, the Pittsburg of France. This city 
was not only the center of the textile industry, but 
had scores and hundreds of factories and machine 
shops of all kinds. While the city itself was not 
totally destroyed, the factories were almost com- 



76 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

pletely ruined. In some cases railroad tracks were 
laid into the buildings and whole trainloads of 
costly machinery were shipped out of the country. 
I saw the inside of many of these buildings where 
high explosives were used and all that was left 
was the shell of the building, the inside being one 
mass of twisted iron girders and broken concrete. 

Of course, the idea of the enemy was to make it 
impossible for French factories to ever again com- 
pete with their own so they attempted to destroy 
all they left. They especially looked after all pat- 
terns and plans and thought they were making a 
clean sweep. In one case a great factory that 
covered sixty acres of ground was destroyed. But 
the owners had a branch factory in southern 
France and immediately began manufacturing du- 
plicate machinery so that when the war closed all 
that was needed was the transportation facilities 
to get the machinery to Lille. 

In the great coal fields about Lens the works and 
machinery were so completely destroyed that one 
could hardly tell there were coal mines in the dis- 
trict at all. The writer went over these ruins after 
the war closed and it is simply beyond the imagi- 
nation to picture the actual conditions at that time. 
The course of small rivers and streams were 
changed so that the water could be run into these 
mines. 

One quite remarkable distinction is noticeable 
to a stranger going through France and that is that 
an occasional factory seems to be located in the 
midst of an agricultural district. The land may be 
farmed on all sides up to the factory buildings. 
The men often work in these factories while the 
women and children and old men do the work on 
the farms. 



A Glimpse of America's Friend — France 11 

Portions of southern France are noted for the 
beautiful vineyards. Bordeaux and other brands 
of wine are famous the world around. Some of 
our boys are laughing yet about the French meth- 
ods of making wine. The grapes are gathered and 
piled into a great vat. When this receptacle is 
filled, men, women and children take off their 
shoes and most all of their clothes and climb in. 
Here they walk and jump and tramp until the 
whole thing is a mass of pulp. In the meantime, 
the wine is continually draining out and being 
cared for by others. 

After they have tramped out all the juice pos- 
sible by this method the remains are put into a 
great press something like a cider press. After all 
the wine has been extracted by these various 
methods, they use the pulp in the manufacture of a 
powerful intoxicant, but this is not generally used, 
as a beverage. Of course, all understand that in 
many places they have modern machinery and 
make wane along scientific lines, but in many cases 
they use these old methods to this day. 

The courage of the French people is sublime. 
Even in the darkest days their faith never wavered 
and they firmly believed they would be victorious. 
As a monument of this faith there is in Paris today 
the most wonderful painting perhaps that was 
ever put upon canvas. It is called the "Pantheon 
de Guerre" and is a marvelous cycloramic paint- 
ing of the war. It was opened up to the public 
soon after the armistice was signed and the writer 
saw it while attending the Peace Conference. 

Many remember the wonderful representation 
of the Battle of Gettysburg which used to be in 
Chicago. This Paris cyclorama is along the same 
line, but ten times more wonderful. It is three 



78 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

hundred and seventy-four feet in circumference 
and forty-five high. The actual preparation of 
this began in October, 1914, and while the army of 
the invaders was wdthin thirty miles of Paris and 
the big guns were shaking the city, more than 
twenty artists were working on the marvelous pro- 
duction. 

The central figure is a woman, mounted upon a 
high pedestal, which stands in front of a huge tem- 
ple, and she is holding aloft the laurel wreath of 
victory. Upon the first step of a giant stairway 
which leads to the temple is a group of French 
heroes which includes Joffre, Foch, Petain and 
many others, while in front of them are guns and 
flags bearing marks of conflict. The only allusion 
to Germany in the whole painting is in the battle- 
scarred flags and guns which were used in the first 
battle of the Marne. Upon this gigantic stairway 
are life-size figures of more than five thousand 
people nearly everyone of which is a life sketch of 
some French hero of the war. Among them are 
many women whose heroic work and influence 
will live forever. 

Just across on the opposite side of the painting 
from this scene is depicted a gigantic tomb on the 
top of which is a group of soldiers holding aloft a 
great coffin in which is a dead companion. At the 
base and on the steps is a woman dressed in 
mourning, kneeling in the attitude of prayer, while 
nearby is a wreath inscribed to the unknown dead. 
Back of the tomb in the distance you can see the 
rays of the setting sun and in some indescribable 
way they are lighting up the faces of those on the 
temple stairway like a beautiful rainbow of prom- 
ise, while the tomb itself is left in the shadows of 
the declining day. 



A Glimpse of America's Friend — France 79 

In the group representing Belgium it is only 
natural that Edith Cavil should have a prominent 
place. To be sure King Albert and his queen and 
others are there. As in Belgium the first casualties 
occurred it is fitting that here alone is seen a 
wounded man and the Red Cross workers are car- 
ing for him as he lies upon a stretcher. Here too, 
are seen the broken pieces of a cathedral tower 
with a chalice and altar and Cardinal Mercier in 
his priestly robes, while lying on the steps between 
him and the king is the torn "scrap of paper." 

But it would take pages of this book to give an 
adequate description of the entire panorama. O^ 
course, all the allies are represented. In a group 
representing the United States, President Wilson 
is one of the chief figures. I am told that the pic- 
ture of General Pershing is a life-sized painting, 
which he was kind enough to sit for, to be used in 
this production. Here is also seen an American 
Indian, a cowboy, a merchant and an artisan. An 
American flag is borne aloft while four West 
Point cadets suggest training and leadership. 
Women relief workers of all kinds are seen. Then 
extending entirely around the room above and 
back of all these groups is a profile map of France 
from the Channel to the Swiss border. Here can 
be seen the principal towns and cities involved 
during the war. Here, too, can be seen all the 
modern implements of war and everything is 
actual or life size. 

As I stood gazing upon this wonderful produc- 
tion of artistic genius, my own brain almost reeled 
and staggered at the immensity and vividness of it. 
One moment the perspiration would break out and 
the next moment it was hard to keep the tears 
back. Pride, beauty, indignation, mourning, gen- 



80 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

ius, art, science, invention, generalship, statesman- 
ship, honor, love, tenderness, devotion, heroism 
and glory are all intermingled in a most marvelous 
way. The opportunity to behold and study this 
great panorama of the war is almost worth a trip 
to Paris. Then to think of the faith and courage it 
must have taken to work on and on while the shells 
from the big guns were bursting at regular inter- 
vals during the day and the bombs dropping from 
the aeroplanes above at night; all this fills and 
thrills one's heart with admiration for the French 
people. 



CHAPTER XI 

Some Impressions of the Great Peace Conference 

FOR a month the writer listened to the heart- 
beat of nations as their representatives were 
gathered in the city of Paris. No other city ever 
had within its borders so many of the statesmen 
of nations. There were worked out the beginnings 
of the great problems that will mean the life of 
civilization. 

Should the nations of the earth plan and make 
preparation for another war the race is imperiled. 
It is either universal peace or universal doom. 
Either some plan to stop war or preparation for 
the final judgment. Quit fighting or quit living. 
Peace or death. 

The late war revealed the possibilities of human 
genius. Man's power to destroy has been discov- 
ered and across the sky can be seen in letters of 
blood the warning, "Abolish war or perish." Some 
say the war ended six months too soon, but had it 
continued that much longer, the probable results 
are too awful to contemplate. The Angel of De- 
struction had the sword lifted over Germany, but 
it was as though divine providence stayed his 
hand. 

American genius was just coming into play. For 
instance, we are told that a gas had been discov- 
ered that is so deadly that a few bombs filled with 
it and dropped upon a city would all but wipe it 
out of existence. When the armistice was signed 
hundreds of tons of that gas were ready for use 
and on the way to the battle front. Other inven- 
tions and discoveries have since been brought out 
that are too deadly to even talk about. 



82 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

No one can describe the Peace Conference with- 
out giving great credit to our president, for with- 
out him it seemed that the leaders were unable to 
get anywhere. When he said that the time had 
come when the civilized nations of the earth 
should form an organization to abolish war the 
enthusiasm of the common people knew no 
bounds. A committee was at once appointed to 
work out a constitution for such an organization 
and President Wilson was made the chairman. 

Some problems touch only the rich and others 
have to do with the poor alone; some interest only 
the capitalist and others interest only those who 
toil with their hands; some absorb the thought of 
only the white race while others have to do with 
the black and yellow races; some have to do only 
with the educated while others reach none but the 
ignorant; but here is a problem that has to do with 
every family on the earth, rich or poor, capitalist 
or laboring man, white, black and all other colors 
and races — in fact, it touches every home and will 
do so as long as people live upon the earth. 

To abolish war would rejoice the heart of every 
mother who has gone into the jaws of death to give 
birth to a son. It would bring gratitude from the 
heart of every wife and sweetheart whose face has 
been bathed with tears as the last good-bys were 
on their lips. It would be a blessing to every child 
now living, as well as to the generations yet un- 
born. It would thrill the heart of every lover of 
justice and mercj^ and would answer the heart 
longings of millions who have prayed without 
ceasing for the reign of peace on earth among men 
of good will. 

When President Wilson enunciated the fourteen 
points some wiseacres laughed and criticised, but 



Some Impressions of the Great Peace Conference 83 

these very points formed the basis of the armistice 
and the Good Lord only knows how many Ameri- 
can lives were saved to say nothing of English, 
French, Italian and all the rest. No one knows 
how many are alive and well today who would 
have been sleeping in unknown and unmarked 
graves had the armistice been detained a single 
week. 

The American headquarters in Paris during the 
Peace Conference were in the Hotel Grillion, which 
is on the Place de la Concorde in the heart of the 
city. The room number 351 belonged to the suite 
occupied by Colonel House and it was really the 
birth chamber of the League of Nations. The 
nineteen men who made up the committee be- 
longed to fourteen nations. President Wilson, as 
chairman, called them together in this room. The 
first meeting of this committee was held February 
third and Vv^as very brief. In all, ten meetings were 
held and all w^ere held in this room. President 
Wilson presided at all but one of them. Each man 
brought his suggestions in writing so there would 
be no chance for misunderstanding. Full discus- 
sion of all points was always encouraged. When 
the entire constitution was worked out it was 
agreed to unanimously and it v/as then ready to be 
presented to the Peace Conference. 

Until the Peace Treaty was ready to sign all 
meetings of the great conference were held in the 
Foreign Ministry building in Paris. This is across 
the river Seine from the Concorde. Many sup- 
posed all meetings were held at Versailles but this 
is a mistake. Versailles is a city of some sixty 
thousand people and about ten miles from Paris. 
The old Palace is there but the great Hall of Mir- 
rors where the treaty was finally signed could not 



84 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

be comfortably heated in the winter time. So for 
that as well as other reasons the meetings were 
held in Paris. 

Through Mr. Ray Stannard Baker I received a 
pass to the Peace Conference. These passes were 
only given to newspaper men and I represented 
People's Popular Monthly. The great day w^as 
February fourteenth, 1919. On this date eighty- 
four statesmen representing twenty-seven nations, 
the combined population of which is more than 
twelve hundred million people, were seated around 
one table. Clemenceau was the chairman of the 
conference and sat at the head of the table. By 
his side sat our own president, who at that time, 
towered head and shoulders above the statesmen 
of the world. Let politicians rave and senators 
criticize, yet the fact remains that Woodrow Wil- 
son will have a place in history by the side of the 
immortal Lincoln and Washington. 

When he was introduced our president read the 
constitution, or covenant as it was called, and then 
made some remarks concerning it. While I stood 
listening to him as he thrilled the hearts and held 
almost breathless this company of statesmen and 
noted their faces as he said : "We are now seeing 
eye to eye and learning that after all, all men on 
this earth are brothers," my eyes are swimming in 
tears and I don't know yet whether it was the man 
speaking, what he said, or the way he thrilled 
those men, that caused it. I do know, however, 
that it was one of the greatest moments I ever 
lived. 

Near the end of the table sat the black man from 
Liberia. How his face shone and his eyes sparkled 
when he heard these words! When he reached 
his homeland he no doubt told his people how the 



Some Impressions of the Great Peace Conference 85 

great American president championed a plan to 
abolish war and told the statesmen of the Peace 
Conference that the world is learning that all men 
on this earth are brothers, and the very hills of 
that black land echoed with praises for America. 

Since that day the Chinese, who have never been 
warriors and love America anj^^ay, have talked in 
their tea rooms and joss houses about the Ameri- 
can President's plan to abolish war. In the vil- 
lages of far away India, in the homes of the Sea 
Islanders and in fact v/herever human beings have 
congregated they have talked of a world peace. 
But it w^as the peoples of the downtrodden, war- 
stricken nations especially who looked to our 
president as the great champion of liberty and 
freedom. They believed that he was the "Big 
Brother" and that the country that he represented 
would see that they were treated fairly. 

Representing the great western giant whose 
genius, pov>^er and marvelous accomplishments of 
a few short months filled all Europe with amaze- 
ment and far out-distanced anything thej^ had 
done in the three years before, standing at the 
head of the only unexhausted nation and w^hich 
could dictate the policies of the world — ^for this 
man to go to the Peace Conference with a plan to 
forever abolish war, it simply won for himself and 
our country" the admiration and confidence of the 
statesmen of the world. Nothing like it had ever 
been seen before and the gratitude of all knew no 
bounds. 

Then the modest, dignified, unselfish bearing of 
our president among them turned gratitude into 
love and devotion. The words of far-sighted wis- 
dom spoken everj^'here brought from the great- 
est statesmen the recognition of leadership. With- 



86 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

out a single effort on his part to put himself for- 
ward, he became the natural leader of all. 

A single instance of his thoughtfulness will be 
given. I was determined to see the tomb where 
General Pershing stood when he uttered the fa- 
mous words: "Lafayette we have come," and 
which made the whole French nation doff its hat 
and cheer. After hours of searching and miles of 
walking and inquiries galore, the place was found, 
but the door to the enclosure had to be unlocked 
with a silver key. When entrance was gained and 
the spot finally reached, there on the tomb was a 
wreath of flowers nearly as large as a wagon wheel 
and which, when they were fresh, must have been 
beautiful beyond words to described. Upon it was 
a card on which had been written in English the 
words: "The President of the United States of 
America. In memory of the great Lafayette from 
a fellow servant of liberty." 

Then came the months of haggling, the work of 
selfish politicians both at home and abroad, and 
finally the rejection by our own people of the 
greatest piece of work since the beginning of the 
Christian era, all of which makes one who knows 
the real situation hang his head in shame. Why 
any living mortal in America could oppose a plan 
that has for its object the abolition of war is sim- 
ply amazing to the people of Europe. Just before 
I left Paris in 1919 a French business man said to 
me: "I understand that the cables are saying that 
you have some men in your country who are op- 
posing your president and this effort to abolish 
war. What kind of men have you got over there 
anyway? Go back and tell them that it is not only 
the greatest thing for America that he came over 



Some Impressions of the Great Peace Conference 87 

here but it is one of the greatest things for the 
whole world that ever happened." 

In the fall of 1921 I made another trip to Europe 
and the change was beyond any power to describe. 
People who looked upon America as the one great 
nation of the earth almost sneered when they men- 
tioned our attitude toward the League of Nations. 
They have almost lost confidence in us and it will 
be hard to regain it. France is especially bitter. 
Perhaps the result of the Disarmament Confer- 
ence, which is practically the same thing under 
another name, will help them to forget some 
things, but the French will be slow to take up with 
it. We are all proud of the part our leaders had 
in this great meeting in Washington, but had our 
government stood enthusiastically for the League 
of Nations it would have saved hundreds of mil- 
lions of dollars that we now have to dig up in 
taxes, and at the same time saved famine, fighting 
and hatred that it will take a long time to over- 
come. 



CHAPTER XII 
The Nightmare of Europe — Alsace-Lorraine 

iij CONGRATULATE you on the annexation of 
JL an open sore to j^our Empire," said Emperor 
Francis Joseph of Austria to the German Kaiser 
when Alsace-Lorraine was ceded to Germany by 
the Treaty of Frankfort at the close of the Franco- 
Prussian War, in 1871. As we entered the world 
war to fight for the downtrodden people of the 
world, determined that people must have their 
rights and that the peril of military autocracy 
must be crushed forever, the problem of Alsace- 
Lorraine became a great problem to America. 
Every citizen of the United States should know 
something of this little country that has been 
called "The Nightmare of Europe." 

Germany made every possible effort to blind the 
eyes of the world in regard to the facts about these 
provinces. She constantly declared there was no 
Alsace-Lorraine problem. In 1881, the Kaiser, in 
speaking of these provinces gave utterance to these 
words: "Germany would leave her eighteen army 
corps and her forty-two million people on the field 
of battle rather than surrender a single stone of 
the territory won in 1871." Because Mr. Daniel 
Blumenthal, who lived in Alsace all his life, was 
mayor of one of the important cities there and a 
member of fhe German Reichstag and the Alsace- 
Lorraine Senate for years, dared to tell the world 
the truth about his country, he was condemned to 
death eight times. He lived, however, and then 
they imposed upon him sentences of penal servi- 
tude that aggregated more than five hundred years' 



The Nightmare of Europe — Alsace-Lorraine 89 

time. This man finally got out of Germany and 
the whole world then listened to his storj\ 

First, take a look at the provinces. They are 
located, as you know, at the northeast corner of 
France. Together they are about as large as the 
Yellowstone National Park, or the size of about 
six Iowa counties. The soil is the most fertile to 
be found in Central Europe. The hills are richly 
wooded with fir, oak and beech, as well as other 
varieties. Corn, flax, tobacco, grapes and various 
fruits are grown. The great wealth, however, is in 
the minerals. Iron, lead, copper, coal, rock salt 
and even silver are there. Manufacturers of cotton 
and linen are plentiful. 

In the old days this country was a part of ancient 
Gaul and the Romans had it for five hundred 
years. When Rome broke up it became a part of 
France, and so remained until about the middle of 
the tenth centurj% at w^hich time it came under the 
jurisdiction of Germany. Later on Alsace became 
a part of the Holy Roman Empire. During these 
days it was made a republic under the direction of 
a bishop and became a decapole, or province 
v/ith ten free cities. This league of free cities had 
control for two hundred years, and with this in 
mind it is easy to see where and how this principle 
of liberty and freedom was born in the hearts of 
these people. 

At the close of the Thirty Years War, at the 
Peace of Westphalia in 1648, these provinces came 
back to France and constituted a part of this coun- 
try until the close of the Franco-Prussian War 
when Germam/ took it. The Treaty of Frankfort, 
which ceded this land to Germany was, as some 
one says, "not a treaty of peace but a treaty of 
hatred." Bismarck declared that Metz and Strass- 



90 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

burg had been an open door through which France 
came again and again to invade Germany and he 
proposed to lock the door and throw the key into 
the well. Of course he had an eye upon the rich 
iron mines which were absolutely necessary to 
Germany in her preparation for a world war. 

This country has been a battlefield for centuries. 
It was the religious battleground in the seventh 
century. The Thirtj^ Years War devastated almost 
every foot of the territory. It is said that in one 
community there was not a wedding for twelve 
years and not a baptism for fifteen years. Strass- 
burg with its great university and priceless library 
was burned. The writer of these lines passed 
through this country years ago where it is said 
that there were two hundred square miles of ceme- 
teries instead of farms. 

In 1870-1871 came the Franco-Prussian War and 
once more these provinces w^ere largely devastated. 
Somehow the people got an inkling that their land 
might go to Germanj'' and at once they were up in 
arms about it. They sent a delegation of twenty- 
eight men to the national assembly at Bordeaux 
with the following appeal: "Alsace-Lorraine are 
opposed to alienation. These two provinces, asso- 
ciated with France for more than two centuries in 
good and evil fortune and constantly opposed to 
hostile attack, have consistently sacrificed them- 
selves in the cause of national greatness; they have 
sealed with their blood the indissoluble compact 
that binds them to French unity. With one acqprd, 
citizens who have remained in their own homes 
and the soldiers who have hastened to join the 
colors, proclaim by their votes or by their action 
on the field, to Germany and to the world, the ud 
alterable determination to remain French." 



The Nightmare of Europe — Alsace-Lorraine 91 

When the decision was reached to give these 
provinces to Germany they sent the following ap- 
peal to the nations of Europe: "Europe cannot 
permit or ratify the abandonment of Alsace and 
Lorraine. The civihzed nations, as guardians of 
justice and national rights, cannot remain indiffer- 
ent to the fate of their neighbor under pain of be- 
coming in their turn victims of the outrages they 
have tolerated. Modern Europe cannot allow a 
people to be seized like a herd of cattle; she cannot 
continue deaf to the repeated protest of threat- 
ened nationalities. She owes it to her instinct of 
self-preservation to forbid such abuses of her 
poY>^er. She knows too that the unity of France 
is now, as in the past, a guarantee of the general 
order of the world, a barrier against the spirit of 
conquest and invasion. Peace concluded at the 
price of cession of territory could be nothing but a 
costly truce, not a final peace. It would be for a 
cause of international unrest, a permanent and 
legitimate provocation of war." 

Even after this wonderful appeal, still another 
final plea was made, but it did no good. The 
heartless Bismarck had France by the throat and 
other nations seemed afraid to champion the 
cause of these helpless people. Thus the whole 
world reaped the reward of silence when great 
principles were involved. I have given the protest 
almost in full, quoting it from David Starr Jordan, 
that readers of this chapter can behold the evil 
effects of accepting a peace when the rights of 
people are left out of the question. 

A provision in this Treaty of Frankfort allowed 
those who wished to cross the line into France to 
go. Of course this would involve leaving their 
homes, their farms, their old neighbors and every- 



92 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

thing else that they could not take along. More 
than a year was given for this and on the last day 
of grace one author says: "All those who had 
means of transportation rode in carts, wagons, car- 
riages, running over the black roads. Whole fam- 
ilies drove their cattle. Old men dragged them- 
selves on, leaning on the shoulders of young 
women who bore at the breast nev/-born children. 
Sick men, who wished not to die German, were 
carried bodily that they might draw their last 
breath on the frontier of Nancy and thank heaven 
to die on French soil." 

Then the Germans tried to blot out all traces of 
France. The French language was forbidden in 
schools, on advertisements or even on tombs. Po- 
lice and secret service men watched the inhabi- 
tants and men were imprisoned for any demon- 
stration whatsoever that exalted France. The 
frontier was closed, all communication with 
France was cut off and no one could cross the 
border without a passport that was vized by the 
German Ambassador in Paris. This was done until 
the death of Bismarck. In spite of all this, when- 
ever a chance was given for the people to choose 
between France and Germany, they chose France. 
It must be remembered too, that a half million 
people crossed the line into France while they 
could and that a half million German immigrants 
had taken their places. 

All through the years France had mourned for 
her lost provinces and refused to be comforted. 
Many times I have seen the mourning figure of 
Strassburg, which is in the Place de la Concorde, 
in the hearl: of the city of Paris. This statue repre- 
sents the distress of Alsace-Lorraine and "around 
this figure the war spirit of France rallied for forty 



The Nightmare of Europe — Alsace-Lorraine 93 

years." It is said that flowers were placed at this 
figure every day for forty years. 

When General Joffre and the French army en- 
tered Alsace in August, 1914, the joy of the people 
knew no bounds. How they wept and rejoiced as 
the bands played the Marseillaise! French flags 
that had been hidden aw^ay for forty-three years 
w^ere brought out and such scenes of rejoicing 
have rarelv been witnessed. The same was true in 
Paris. A great company of Alsatians formed a 
procession and mxarched to the Strassburg statue 
on the Concorde. The procession was led by 
Alsatian women who carried palm branches. All 
marched bare-headed to the statue. Ladders were 
placed against the monumicnt. An Alsatian climbed 
to the top and wound a broad tri-colored sash 
around the statue. The crowd cried : "Av/ay with 
the crepe" and instantly all signs of mourning that 
had surrounded the statue for forty-three years 
were torn away. 

As might be expected, when the French army 
was driven out of Alsace later on, the people suf- 
fered untold misery. The Good Lord only knows 
what they went through. Thousands were con- 
demned to prison for the aw^ful crime of mani- 
festing their French sentiments. A single word 
that reflected upon what Germany had done in 
any way would send one to prison. A lawyer by 
the name of Berger was sentenced to prison for a 
term of eight years for casually alluding to the 
invasion of Belgium. The number of women con- 
demned to prison was enormous, for the women 
were more outspoken and less respectful to the 
Germans than the men. 

Neither did prison sentences end it; sentences of 
death w^ere ver^^ many. The press was not allowed 



94 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

to mention those who were shot. It was reported 
that thirty thousand of the people in these prov- 
inces were imported into Germany. But those 
days have gone by and it is certain that never 
again will Germany wield the sceptre over these 
provinces. Of course in this brief glimpse of Al- 
sace-Lorraine many very important matters could 
not be mentioned at all, but these are sufficient to 
show why they could not help hating the people 
who have been heartless in their effort to subdue 
some of their blood relatives. 



CHAPTER XIII 
The Home of the Passion Play — Oberammergau 

NESTLED at the foot of the mountains in the 
highlands of Bavaria, is the little village of 
Oberammergau, the home of the world-famous 
Passion Play. Although of German extraction, 
these humble people were opposed to war with all 
their power, but w^hen it came they were com- 
pelled to submit. One of the saddest pictures dur- 
ing the war was that of these people as it was given 
by Madaline Doty, which was published in the 
Atlantic Monthly in 1917. 

This writer said : "The village was silent and the 
people were in great distress. There were no car- 
riages or even push carts; no smiling people, no 
laughter, and no gay voices were heard. Old peo- 
ple sat about as if dazed. Five hundred and fifty 
out of eighteen hundred population had gone to 
war." The village was bankrupt. There was no 
money. It was like a plague-stricken place. The 
theater building was locked up. The little stores 
had nothing to sell. No person was allowed more 
than one egg per week and but few could get that. 
People were on the point of starvation. 

During the season of 1910 the writer made the 
journey to Oberammergau on purpose to see the 
Passion Play and this chapter is but a brief de- 
scription of it. Journeying from Zurich, Switzer- 
land, to Oberammergau a stop was made at Mu- 
nich. From that place there is but one little dinky 
railroad and one of the greatest mobs I ever got 
into was at the depot in Munich. A thousand peo- 
ple were trying to get on a train that could carry 



96 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

only a few hundred. Finding a porter who was 
persuaded to open a compartment with a silver 
key a half dozen of us had a comfortable place. 
The distance to the mountain village is less than 
one hundred miles, but it took from five in the 
evening until midnight to reach it. 

Having purchased a ticket for the play on the 
following day weeks before, and with it lodging 
for two nights, a gentleman took me from the 
depot to the home of one of the players and I 
went to bed. Early the next morning while eating 
breakfast at the home, on looking through the door 
I discovered that one end of the house was a cow 
stable. Going from the house all that was neces- 
sary was to follow the crowd, for people seemed 
to be coming from everywhere. Passing through 
the winding, narrow streets, soon the large theater 
building was reached. 

This building is one hundred and forty feet 
square. The roof is supported by six gigantic 
arches that are sixty-five feet high in the center. 
The floor is built on an incline so that every one 
of the four thousand seats is a good one. The 
stage reaches entirely across the building and is in 
the open air, the whole end of the building open. 
At each end of the stage are small buildings rep- 
resenting the Palace of Pilate and the Palace of 
the High Priest. Back about twenty feet from the 
edge of the stage is a covered stage with a curtain 
and in which the tableaus are arranged. There 
are fourteen entrances to the building. 

The large orchestra is just in front of the stage 
but lower than the people, so unless one happens 
to be near the platform the musicians cannot be 
seen at all. The end of the entire building being 
open, the rain beats in and the cheapest seats are 



The Home of the Passion Play — Oberammergau 97 

those where one is likely to get wet should it rain. 
The orchestra is kept dry by a large canvas that is 
pulled out when the rain begins. Back in the 
inner covered stage is a network of ropes, pulleys, 
lances, arms for Roman soldiers, dishes for ban- 
quets, costumes and wardrobes for the players, all 
in perfect order and ready for use at a moment's 
notice. 

The play itself occupies about eight hours. 
There are six hundred and eighty-five people in it, 
but only one hundred and twenty speaking parts. 
The principal actors are not many, but during the 
play there are many children as well as old men 
and women take part. There are twenty-two 
tableaus; seventy-six scenes and in all eighteen 
acts. The tableaus represent Old Testament proph- 
ecies of the events portrayed. It must be remem- 
bered, however, that the play represents only the 
events that occurred during the last week of 
Christ's life. 

The music is simply wonderful. For genera- 
tions these mountain people have been developing 
a tenderness and pathos that really grips one's 
heart. The music was composed by a man by the 
name of Dedler, about one hundred years ago, and 
while it gives expression to the composer's tender 
heart, yet experts say that it reminds them of 
Hayden and Mozart. The paintings in the build- 
ing are those of great masters. It took an entire 
year to paint the scenery for the play in 1910, but 
they could not afford to spend so much upon it in 
1922. The curtains and costumes are of fine ma- 
terial, nothing shoddy or cheap about it. 

The story of the beginning of the Passion Play is 
as interesting as a novel. It was in the year 1633. 
A pestilence was raging in the villages in the 



98 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

mountains of Bavaria and death rode down the 
valleys like a mighty conqueror. Hundreds were 
smitten and the hand of death could not be stayed. 
Whole villages were depopulated and even the 
dead were left unburied. For a while the village 
of Oberammergau was favored, while neighboring 
villages were stricken. A line of sentinels were 
stationed around the village and a strict quaran- 
tine was maintained. Finally, love of home and 
the desire to see his family caused a laboring man, 
Casper Schushler, who was working in another 
village, to steal through the line and spend an 
evening at his own family fireside. 

In a couple of days all was changed. The songs 
of the children were hushed in silence, for this 
man had brought the plague into the village. In 
thirty-three days eighty-four had perished and 
scores of others were smitten by the hand of death. 
It was a great crisis and looked as though that 
soon there would not be left among the living 
enough to bury the dead. A public meeting was 
called. It was a sad gathering of hollow-eyed men 
and women. They spent the whole day in earnest 
prayer. They vowed to the Lord that day that if 
he would hear their petition and save them, they 
would repent of their sins as a token of their sin- 
cerity, and that they would try to re-enact the 
scenes of Calvary and thus give an object lesson 
of God's love for humanity. 

The chronicler says that from that moment the 
hand of death was stayed. Not another person in 
the village died from the plague. Every one smit- 
ten recovered and by this they knew that the Lord 
had heard their prayers. At once they set about to 
carry out their vow. From that day forward they 
aimed to give the object lesson every ten years and 



The Home of the Passion Play — Oberammergau 99 

have done so except on occasions when they have 
been hindered by war, as two years ago. In 1910 
a quarter of a million people endured the hard- 
ships and inconveniences of a long, tiresome jour- 
ney, sometimes spending many hundred dollars, 
to see the play. 

The day I spent there was one of the shortest 
days in my memory. Sermons not an hour long 
have sometimes seemed longer than this entire 
day. A strange silence was everywhere. There 
was no gaiety such as one sees at a theater. There 
was no applause, no laughter. Criticise it if you 
will, condemn it if you like, yet the fact remains 
that it is the greatest object lesson of the ages. It 
would be hard for any man to see it and not come 
away with a more tender heart and a better ap- 
preciation of the world's Redeemer. The late 
WiUiam T. Stead truly called this play "The Story 
That Has Transformed the World." 

No other story so fills and thrills the soul. I saw 
non-Christian men sit trembling with emotion and 
great tears rolling down their faces. Sometimes 
one's indignation was so aroused that it was hard 
to sit still. At other times the fountains of the 
great deep were broken up and one's heart would 
nearly burst. On this particular day every one of 
the four thousand seats were taken and five hun- 
dred people stood up from morning until evening. 
It is as impossible to describe the Passion Play as 
it is to describe a song. It is real life before your 
eyes. I have never yet seen pictures of it that did 
not make me heart-sick, for it is impossible to 
give a true picture of it on the screen. 

On years when the play is given it generally be- 
gins about the middle of May and closes the last of 
September. They give it regularly on Sunday and 



100 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

Wednesday of each week during this time. During 
the busy season it is often repeated for the over- 
flow on Monday and Thursday and occasionally 
on Friday. Tickets for the regular play are gen- 
erally sold out beforehand but as usual a great 
many reach the place without tickets and have to 
be accommodated in this way. 

All the years the highest ambition of the boys 
and girls in the village is to so live that they will 
be chosen for some prominent part in the play. 
No one can be chosen unless born in the village 
and this confines it to the village. No one is chosen 
for a prominent part if there is anything against 
his character and that places a premium on right 
living. Hence one can easily see their reason for 
hating war with all their power. While narrow in 
their peculiar religious ideas, no doubt, yet a more 
consecrated and devoted class of people are per- 
haps not found in another village on earth. 

All told there are nearly a thousand people who 
are connected in some way with the play and as 
the population of the village is less than two thou- 
sand, it practically takes in every family and 
sometimes every member of the family. The 
choosing of the important players is always an 
important event in the village. After a season 
closes no characters are chosen for seven years. 
At length the day arrives when the committee of 
fourteen who are to choose the leading characters 
for the play three years hence is elected. It is a 
great day. The assembly meets in the town hall. 
Every parishioner has a vote. The mayor of the 
village is chairman. 

After this committee of fourteen is duly elected 
a meeting is soon called. It takes several months 
to consider the problem. Every player must sign 



The Home of the Passion Play — Oberammergau 101 

a contract to carry out his part to the best of his 
ability. Offenders are punished with great sever- 
ity. Married women are barred from the promi- 
nent parts. It is said that more than one hundred 
rehearsals are held before the opening day. 

The receipts for a season are enormous. The 
sale of post cards and souvenirs greatly add to the 
sum. It is not surprising that these people are 
often accused for running the play for the money 
there is in it. But the leading characters only re- 
ceive a few hundred dollars for the season's work. 
The church receives a large amount. The theater 
building and upkeep represents a fortune. To 
care for the thousands who attend, the town must 
have a good w^ater supply, an up-to-date sanitary 
system, and many things that would be uncalled 
for in an ordinary town. Located as it is away in 
the mountains, it is very difficult to have the things 
that are necessary in the way of improvements. 

The people of Oberammergau are a humble, 
hard-working people. Their main business is 
wood carving and they are experts in this work. 
Without the Passion Play season the demand for 
their product would not be so great. As is said 
above these people are very religious. They have 
a very expensive church or two. On a peak of one 
of the highest mountains in the vicinity is a gi- 
gantic cross. This is kept polished and when the 
sun shines upon it the sight is very beautiful. 
Many journey to the top of this mountain and the 
view richly repays one for the difficult climb. 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Country Where the War Started — Servia 

IT WAS a Servian lad who started the war, or 
rather the fire was all ready to start and he lit 
the match. Whether he was hired to do this or not 
as has been reported may never be known as he 
died before the investigation had been completed. 
Nevertheless, this deed aroused the interest of the 
world in a country that was almost unknown be- 
fore the war. 

Servia is not quite as large as the state of In- 
diana. The population is about double that of 
Indiana and the climate about the same as this 
state. The northern boundary is, or was at the 
outbreak of the war, the Danube river, on the east 
Bulgaria, on the south Greece, while on the west 
were Albania, Montenegro and Austria. She was 
shut away from any seaports all the years, and 
most of the time surrounded by enemies, the great- 
est of these being Austria on the west and Turkey 
to the east. 

In natural resources Servia is one of the richest 
countries in Europe, being productive of soil, good 
climate, well watered and having large mineral 
wealth. The Moravia river runs across the great 
plain in middle Servia and is to the country much 
the same as the Nile is to Egypt. Corn is culti- 
vated everywhere in the country and is perhaps 
the greatest crop, while wheat also is largely 
raised. While various fruits are widely grown the 
plum orchards are the most numerous. Grapes 
also are grown extensively. Gold, silver, copper, 
iron and coal are found in many parts of the 



Where the World War Started— Servia 103 

country. It is interesting to know that a Belgian 
company has perhaps the largest anthracite coal 
mine in Servia. Also, there are three and one-half 
milhon acres of forests in this small country. 

The Servians are a race of peasant farmers, 
eighty per cent of the people being tillers of the 
soil. Most of the farms, however, are very small. 
The average farm is less than twenty acres. Servia 
perhaps leads the world in home owners according 
to population. Nine-tenths of the farmers own 
their farms. This is largely due to laws and old 
customs. The law allows a man a minimum farm 
of five acres with a team of oxen and farming im- 
plements and no one can take these from him for 
debt no matter how just may be his claim. An- 
other law requires everyone to contribute a certain 
quantity of corn or wheat each year to a municipal 
institution to be lent in time of need or for seed 
to anyone and at a very moderate rate of interest. 

Another old custom among the Servians is for 
the entire community to go and help any man, who 
may be unfortunate, harvest his grain. This is 
made a great day and singing and laughing can be 
heard all day long in the fields, and in the evening 
they have certain religious ceremonies which end 
in a feast with music and dancing. These are 
great events for the young folks. It is a custom 
among the girls for those who are open for engage- 
ment to wear a red feather in their hair. Of late 
years the farmers have an organization that is 
not unlike the grange that we used to have in this 
country. Through this they get better markets for 
what they have to sell and lower prices for what 
they have to buy. Many who read these lines can 
call to mind some of the great times that people 



104 Birdseye Views of Few Lands 

used to have in the meetings and great days in 
granger times. 

The Servians have some queer customs in regard 
to death and funerals. Almost every Servian pre- 
pares boards with which to make his own coffin 
and keeps them in a dry place ready for use when 
he dies. Old women save up money and sew it in 
their dresses, to be used to pay their funeral ex- 
penses. If a farmer is able to afford it he generally 
keeps a barrel of whisky in his cellar, to be drunk 
at his funeral. 

When the body of a dead person is in the house 
no one eats anything and the floors are not swept. 
After the funeral the floors are swept and the 
broom thrown away. For a day after one dies a 
little bread and a glass of wine are kept in the 
room with the dead body. They believe the soul 
tarries awhile and might want to eat and drink. 
They also believe that the soul lingers on earth 
forty days after death, visiting old familiar places 
and on the fortieth day ascends to heaven. 

On the day of a funeral an animal, likely a 
sheep, but never a goat, is killed at the grave in the 
presence of one holding a wax candle. This ani- 
mal is then roasted and those attending the funeral 
have a feast, the guests each bringing something 
to eat with the roast. Women never sing or 
wear flowers or jewelry during the first year of 
mourning. 

European civilization owes much to the Serv- 
ians. For hundreds of years these people have 
fought to save Europe from invasion. They have 
been the bulwark of Christendom against the un- 
speakable Turk and his religion. The bitter trials 
and hardships of the Servians have made them 
brave, heroic and self-sacrificing. This is especially 



Where the World War Started— Seruia 105 

true of the women as the following incident among 
many will show. 

After all the hardships of the Balkan War, when 
diseases and suffering were everywhere; when the 
land had been left uncultivated and hunger stalked 
across the country and the women in both town 
and country had toiled unceasingly; after all 
these days of misery, when Austria was mentioned 
to a peasant woman she declared that she was 
ready for fresh sacrifices. Being reminded of 
what it would mean to have war again she said: 
"What matters the leaves and twigs that fall, pro- 
vided the tree remains standing." 

There has been a very bitter feeling in Servia 
against the Austrians since 1908. In that year 
Austria had trampled under foot her sacred trea- 
ties and by brute force annexed Bosnia and Herze- 
govnia, Servia's neighbors, and had threatened the 
very existence of Servia herself. In the streets of 
Belgrade, their capital city, on that occasion there 
was a vast demonstration held almost in silence 
and every Servian pledged to do or die at his 
country's call. They well knew that a conflict was 
coming. In that war they had done a noble part 
but when it came to the settlement Austria prac- 
tically refused to allow Servia an Adriatic port 
and other advantages she had justly earned. 

From that day until the world war broke out, 
Austria backed and assisted by German secret 
agents, tried to stir up Albania and Bulgaria 
against Servia. Turkey too was only waiting for 
a chance to plunder this country. But worst of all 
and greatest of all, Servia had the audacity to 
block the Kaiser's Berlin to Bagdad railway 
scheme which was to go through Belgrade. 



106 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

Now the time had arrived when something must 
be done to provoke a war with Servia and anni- 
hilate her. The self-appointed world ruler of 
Germany had decreed it. As he was dictating the 
policy of Austria she must find some excuse to 
do the job. Then came the fateful day, July 29, 
1914. On that day the Crown Prince of Austria 
and his wife were assassinated at Sarajevo by a 
Servian youth. 

Not a thing was done openly for twenty-four 
days. At once on the assassination of the Austrian 
Crown Prince, the Kaiser called in his war lords 
and financiers and other great men of his coterie. 
He asked if all were ready for war. The army 
and navy men said they were ready instantly. The 
financiers said they could be ready in two weeks. 
They were told to get ready. While this was being 
done the Kaiser with the Austrian war lords 
worked out a plan by which the act of this Servian 
youth could be laid upon the nation and be made 
an excuse for war. So on the twenty-fourth day 
after the assassination came the ultimatum from 
Austria. It came as a thunderclap out of a clear 
sky. 

The little country was only allowed forty-eight 
hours to concede the unheardof demands. Diplo- 
mats tried to get Austria to extend the time, but 
she refused to do so. Sir Edward Grey of England 
led in an effort to bring about arbitration after 
Austria had declared war, and he all but succeeded 
for Austria and Servia both agreed to submit their 
differences to arbitration and Russia agreed to 
this. But just here Germany openly butted in and 
declared that she would not arbitrate anything 
and thus the war went on until it had involved 



Where the World War Started— Servia 107 

nation after nation and practically the whole 
world w^as into it either directly or indirectly. 

When the declaration of war came to Servia, 
their old king was in bad health and was at a sani- 
tarium. He had appointed his son to the regency. 
But at the word of war, old King Peter left the 
watering-place and started for the front. With 
flag in hand he came to the troops and addressed 
the men saying : "Soldiers, your old king has come 
to die with you; if there be any who are afraid let 
him turn back." It is easy to imagine the result. 
Not one of them turned back, and they easily 
routed the enemy and swept all before them. But 
the story of these terrible years can only be men- 
tioned. The year 1914 was a year of victory for 
the Servians. But later on came the tremendous 
reverses, the awful typhus fever and the heroic 
retreat over the mountains. This retreat is one of 
the saddest and yet one of the most heroic pages 
of history. Finally France was able to come to 
the rescue and the Servians found a refuge on the 
island of Corfu. Had it not been for France the 
Servian nation would have been all but anni- 
hilated. 

While Servia has never made a contribution to 
civilization as has Belgium, she has played such a 
noble part that she will always have a large place 
in the heart of mankind. She has kept the Turk 
from invading Europe for centuries and it is hard 
to realize just what that means. The Turk has 
always been a plunderer and has cursed every- 
thing he touched. But his cup of iniquity has 
been filled to overflowing and the death rattle is 
in his throat. 

Providence has thus used Servia in a most won- 
derful way. Her great vision has been a united 



108 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

country with all the Servians included, where they 
can work out their own problems and live in peace 
and harmony. These people are devoutly reli- 
gious, most of them belonging to the Greek Ortho- 
dox church. They have great respect for learning. 
They are a most hospitable people and any for- 
eigner is always made a welcome guest. They are 
well read in history but have never been favorably 
inclined toward either German education or lan- 
guage. They admire and love the French and 
invited the French Government to open a school 
in Belgrade. They have their own literature and 
folklore, their own popular music and national 
songs. The following are some of their bright 
proverbs of which they have a great many: 

"It is better to serve a good man than to give 
orders to a bad man. 

"It is better to suffer injustice than to commit it. 
"It is better to die honestly than to live dishon- 
estly. 

"It is better to have a good reputation than a 
golden belt. 

"As long as a man does not dishonor himself no 
one can dishonor him. 

"Debt is a bad companion. 

"He who wishes to rest when he is old must work 
when he is young. 

"The lie has short legs. 

"An earnest work is never lost. 

"The unjustly acquired wealth never reaches 
the third generation. 

"A kind word opens the iron door. 

"God sometimes shuts one door that he may 
open a hundred other doors. 



Where the World War Started— Seruia 109 

"It is better to weep with the wise than to sing 
with the fool. 

"In the forest a tree leans upon tree, in a nation 
a man leans on man. 

"Where there is no fear of God there is no shame 
of man. 

"Where there is no wife there is no home. 

"Where the devil cannot cause mischief he 
sends an old woman and she does it. 

"Work as if you are to live a hundred years, 
pray to God as if you were to die tomorrow." 



CHAPTER XV 
A World-Famous Land — Palestine 

THE most fascinating and lureful land on the 
globe is the little country we call Palestine. 
Since it was wrested from the unspeakable Turk 
during the world war, the eyes of the world have 
been focused upon it to a greater degree than ever. 
It is the dearest spot to civilization. From it have 
gone the greatest and most powerful influences for 
good that ever affected humanity. It produced the 
one great character which is today the great center 
of history. The date of his birth is the recognized 
beginning of the greatest era in the history of man- 
kind. The calendars of the world have been 
changed by the Galilean carpenter. 

Palestine is less than one-eighth as large as 
Wisconsin. Smaller than Greece or Italy or Eng- 
land or even Belgium, it has a greater history per- 
haps than all these combined. The book it pro- 
duced is the foundation of history, literature and 
law. The hills and valleys, mountains and rivers 
are hallowed by the memory of him who wore the 
crown of thorns. The writer of these lines will 
never forget the tender memories aroused when 
standing on the sacred spots in this world-famous 
land. 

The man who said : "Palestine is the world in a 
nutshell," told the exact truth. Between snow- 
capped Mount Herman on the north, which is ten 
thousand feet above the ocean, and the Dead Sea 
on the south, which is thirteen hundred feet below 
the level of the ocean, are found all the zones and 
climates that can be found on the globe. The geol- 
ogist finds here not only all the formations of rock 



A World-Famous Land — Palestine 111 

found on the earth, but all the geological periods 
and ages. The botanist finds here about all the 
plants, shrubs and flowers; the zoologist finds most 
all the animals and the ornithologist finds most all 
the birds, while the ichthyologist finds all the 
fishes. 

It used to be thought that there was at least one 
exception to the above named rule : that there was 
at least one type of fish that could not be found in 
Palestine. The exception was a type of fish found 
by David Livingstone in an inland lake in tropical 
Africa. Nature has provided the male of this 
peculiar fish with a large head and made him the 
protector of the school of little fishes when they 
are first hatched out so that in time of danger he 
opens his gills and the little ones swim into his 
mouth where they will be safe. The habit is un- 
heard of and unparalleled among any fish in the 
world, so it is said. While for years it was sup- 
posed that this family of fish was found only in 
tropical Africa, yet some years ago one of this very 
type of fish was caught in the sea of Galilee. 

It was the privilege of the writer to visit Pales- 
tine some years ago with a converted Jew as a 
guide. We fell in together on an Italian steamship 
on the way from Italy to Egypt. On account of 
the bubonic plague which was raging in Egypt at 
the time we were thrown together again unex- 
pectedly, leaving Egypt on the same ship bound 
for Syria. We were quarantined together on a 
ship in a Syrian harbor and became so well ac- 
quainted that he was persuaded to act as my guide 
through Palestine. 

Our first landing place on this sacred soil was at 
the city of Haifa, which is located at the foot of 
Mount Carmel near the northern part of the coun- 



112 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

try. Haifa is a small city of some ten thousand 
people and to visit the market place in the early 
morning makes one think that the people are very 
much alive. Not far from the city are shown some 
rock-cut chambers in Mount Carmel that are said 
to be the very rooms where Elisha conducted his 
school for the young prophets. 

On the top of this mountain perhaps four or 
five miles from Haifa is a sort of a natural amphi- 
theater and in this an old, old, rock-cut altar that 
is pointed out as the place where Elijah and the 
prophets of Baal had the great test to see whose 
god would answer by fire. At the foot of the 
mountain is a large mound which is to this day 
called the "Priest's Mound" and which is the tra- 
ditional burial place of the false prophets who 
were slain at that time. 

From Haifa we went to Nazareth which is about 
eighteen miles in an eastward direction. We trav- 
eled for several miles along a railroad that the 
builders had started and then abandoned. The 
story told me at the time as to why this project 
was abandoned became quite significant when the 
war broke out, although it was told me several 
years before this happened. They said an English 
company secured the right to build a railway from 
Haifa to Damascus. About the time the work was 
started the Kaiser came to visit Palestine. 

Great preparation had been made for this visit 
and as a worshipper (?) he visited all the sacred 
places. On his return he spent a week in Con- 
stantinople with the Sultan of Turkey and that 
immediately after this visit this Turkish ruler de- 
cided that this railway would give the English too 
much power and the company was compelled to 
give up the work. Of course the railway was fin- 



A World-Famous Land — Palestine 113 

ished later on, but not by the English. As it de- 
veloped after the war broke out, the Kaiser and 
the Sultan of Turkey had worked together for 
years. 

Stopping by the highway a Mohammedan wom- 
an was drawing water at a well and on request 
she cheerfully gave us a drink. These people 
never refuse to help even an enemy get a drink of 
water so I was told. The women do most of the 
hard work in Palestine. Where we stopped to 
pay the government tax that was always collected 
from travelers, I saw a man and woman building 
a stone wall. The only thing the man did was to 
sit on the wall while the woman mixed the mortar 
and carried both it and the stone to him. She 
even had to lift the stone up on the wall without 
any assistance from him, but he did manage to 
spread the mortar alone. 

Spread out before us was the great Plain of Es- 
draelon, which was often spoken of as the world's 
greatest battlefield. Here more battles that de- 
cided the destiny of nations have been fought than 
on any other spot on the globe. To behold the 
place where "The stars in their courses fought 
against Sisera" and a score of other world-famous 
struggles was a marvelous sight to say the least. 

Nazareth is a beautiful little city on the side of 
a mountain. The streets are narrow, the paving 
stones are worn slippery, and the shops are all 
open to the streets. In the Church of the Annun- 
ciation they point out "Joseph's Workshop" and 
"Mary's Kitchen" and with great solemnity show 
you the tools used by the Galilean carpenter and 
the cooking utensils used in the sacred home. 
There is in Nazareth one building the walls of 
which perhaps were standing nineteen hundred 



114 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

years ago. This old wall is hoary with age and 
the Hebrew characters above the door indicate 
that it used to be a Jewish synagogue. Possibly 
it was the place where the great sermon was 
preached which so enraged the people that they 
tried to mob the preacher, but he escaped from 
their hands. 

An amusing experience was when we visited the 
Hall of Justice. The officials found that we had 
come into their city without permission from the 
authorities at Haifa. At once we were held up and 
fined. The fines and costs amounted to sixty cents 
each and I had to pay one dollar and twenty cents 
for myself and guide. When this was paid they 
gave us permission to proceed on our journey. 
That all might know that we had this permission 
it was so stated upon the back of our passports. 

The last thing I remember before going to sleep 
one night in the city of Nazareth was the loud talk 
of a crazy man in the street near the window. As 
there were no asylums for these unfortunate peo- 
ple they often just wandered around. I visited the 
only asylum for crazy people in all Syria at that 
time, and Dr. Waldimier told me with his own lips 
that it took him nineteen long years to get per- 
mission from the Turkish government to found 
the institution. 

From the top of the mountain near Nazareth 
one has a wonderful view of the entire country. 
As Palestine is less than one hundred and fifty 
miles long and but one-third as wide one can see 
almost entirely over the land from some high 
elevation. To the east and southeast of the top of 
this mountain lies the great Jordan valley with 
the mountains of Moab in the background. It was 
from one of these peaks, Mount Nebo, that Moses 



A World-Famous Land — Palestine 115 

viewed the landscape o'er. Only about fifteen 
miles to the northeast lies the Sea of Galilee, also 
called the Sea of Tiberias and Lake of Gennesaret. 
One cannot see the water in this lake, but the de- 
pression where it lies is very marked. 

To the north is the "Horn of Hattin," where the 
famous Sermon on the Mount was given to the 
assembled multitude. Still further is Mount 
Hermon which was the scene of the transfigura- 
tion. Still farther away are the mountains of Leb- 
anon. To the west is old Mount Carmel and be- 
yond that the great Mediterranean Sea. Stretched 
out to the southwest is the Plain of Esdraelon, and 
beyond that the mountains of Samaria. Just east 
of this plain are Mount Tabor and Gilboa. One 
can stand for hours and not get tired of looking 
for every foot of the ground is historic. 



CHAPTER XVI 
A World-Famous City — Jerusalem 

THE history of the world is largely the story of 
the rise and fall of great cities. In these great 
centers one can feel the heart-throb of civilization. 
Some of the great cities of today are famous for 
their size, such as New York and London; some 
for their beauty, like Paris and Rio Janeiro; some 
for their culture and learning, as Boston and Ox- 
ford; some for their manufacturing and commer- 
cial supremacy, as Detroit and Liverpool. But 
there is one city on the globe not nearly as large 
as Des Moines, not at all beautiful, its people 
neither cultured nor learned, has no factories and 
one narrow gauge railway takes care of most of 
its commerce, and yet it is by far the most famous 
city of all time. It is the city of Jerusalem. 

The site of the city was once owned by a farmer 
whose name was Oman. He had a threshing floor 
on the top of Mount Moriah. The city as it is 
today is on top of two mountains, but the valley 
between has been filled up so that it is almost like 
one continuous mountain top. Higher mountains 
are practically on every side so that the moment 
one sees the city he thinks of the scripture, "As the 
mountains are round about Jerusalem, so is the 
Lord round about his people." 

To get an idea of the city as it was when the war 
broke out you must imagine a city of about sixty 
thousand people, without street cars, electric lights, 
telephones, waterworks, sewer system or any mod- 
ern improvements whatever. However, General 
AUenby's entrance into the city in December, 1917, 
was the beginning of a new era. In three months 



A World-Famous City — Jerusalem 117 

the English did more for the city than the Turk 
did in a thousand years. 

There is an old Arab legend which says: "Not 
until the River Nile flows into Palestine will the 
Turk be driven from Palestine." Of course this 
was their way of saying that such a thing would 
never come to pass for the Turk actually believed 
that he had such a hold on that country that there 
was no power on earth that could make him give 
it up. But when the English started from Egypt 
they not only built a railroad as they went to- 
ward Jerusalem, but not far from the Nile they 
prepared a great filtering process to cleanse the 
water, and then laid a twelve-inch pipe and 
brought the pure water along with them for both 
man and beast. 

Wherever they stopped for a length of time in 
the desert, "the glowing sands became pools," as 
the prophet had forecasted, and the desert began 
to "blossom as the rose." Sixty-five days after 
General AUenby entered the Jaffa Gate into the 
city of Jerusalem the water pipe or system was 
brought into the city and the Canadian engineer 
had made the Arab legend a reality, bringing the 
sweet waters of the Nile, a hundred and fifty miles 
away, into the City of the Great King. 

Jerusalem is to this day a walled city. The walls 
average some thirty feet high and are about fifteen 
feet thick at the top. It is a little less than two 
and one-half miles around the city wall, but the 
city itself has outgrown these limitations, quite a 
portion of it being on the outside of the wall. The 
hotel at which the writer stopped while visiting 
the city some years ago, was located outside the 
wall, as are many of the best buildings. The 



118 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

streets are narrow, the houses have flat tops and 
many of them are but one or two stories high. 

There was a time, however, when this city 
boasted of having the finest building ever erected 
by the hands of man, viz: Solomon's Temple. 
This was built on Mount Moriah which was a great 
flat mountain top of uneven rock. Great arches 
were built around the sides and then the top lev- 
eled off until the large temple area was formed. 
Below the sides of this area are still seen the 
massive rooms that are called Solomon's stables. 
The writer rambled for hours through these great 
underground vaults and saw the holes in the stone 
pillars where the horses were tied. Here multi- 
plied thousands took refuge during some of the 
memorable sieges that the city went through. 

Not far away are the great vaults known as 
Solomon's Quarries. Here is where the massive 
stones were "made ready" and the master build- 
er's plans were so perfect that, "there was neither 
hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in the 
temple while it was in building." The marks of 
the mason's tools and the niches where their 
lamps were placed can be seen to this day. It is a 
remarkable fact that in sinking shafts alongside 
the temple wall, great stones have been discovered 
but no stone chips are found by them. There are 
numerals and quarry marks and special mason 
marks on some of these stones but they are all 
Phoenician, thus confirming the Bible account that 
Hiram, the great Phoenician master builder pre- 
pared the stones and did the building for King 
Solomon. 

Jerusalem has several large churches the most 
noted of which is the one built over the traditional 
tomb of Christ. It is called the "Church of the 



A World-Famous City — Jerusalem 119 

Holy Sepulchre." For sixteen hundred years there 
was no question but what this tomb was the iden- 
tical one in which the body of Christ was laid. 
This church as it stands today is a magnificent 
building with two great entrances. The sad thing 
about it is the fact that it is divided up into vari- 
ous chapels, each held by sects of so-called Chris- 
tians, and a large-armed guard has to be kept in 
the church to keep these fanatical people from 
killing each other. Before soldiers were placed 
there, scenes of conflict and bloodshed were very 
common indeed — a sad spectacle for Jews and 
Moslems and other enemies of the Christ to gaze 
upon. 

In the Church of Pater Noster I counted the 
Lord's Prayer in thirty-two differenf%nguages in- 
scribed on marble slabs so that almost any person 
from any country can read this prayer in his own 
language. In this connection it is interesting to 
note that at the gate entrance to the Pool of 
Bethesda the scripture story of the healing of the 
impotent man is written, or rather inscribed, be- 
neath the arch, in fifty-one different languages. 

One of the large churches in the city was dedi- 
cated by the ex-kaiser when he visited the city in 
1898. It was later found out that this German 
church was built for military purposes. During 
the war a wireless outfit and great searchlights 
were found in its tower. This self-appointed 
world ruler is represented on the ceiling of the 
chapel of a building on Mount Olivet in a com- 
panion panel with the Deity. In this same build- 
ing the ex-kaiser is represented as a crusader by a 
figure and the Psalmist is painted with the mous- 
tache of a German general. When the ex-kaiser 
entered the city of Jerusalem, a breach was made 



120 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

in the wall near the Jaffa Gate, so instead of en- 
tering through the gate like an ordinary mortal, 
he went in through a hole in the wall. He would 
no doubt be glad now to go through another "hole 
in the wall" to have his liberty. 

To the writer, however, perhaps the most inter- 
esting place in or about the entire city is the Gar- 
den Tomb and Mount Calvary. This is almost 
north of the Damascus gate and on the great high- 
way from Jerusalem from the north. Mount Cal- 
vary is only a small hill. The Jews speak of it as 
the Hill of Execution, or the Skull Place, as the 
outline of the hill seen from a certain direction 
resembles the form of a gigantic skull. It is said 
that no Jew cares to pass this place after night and 
if he passes it in daylight he will mutter a curse 
upon the memory of him who presumed to be the 
King of the Jews. 

Near this Skull Place is an old tomb that just fits 
the Bible narrative, viz: "Now in the place where 
he was crucified there was a garden, and in the 
garden a new sepulchre wherein never man was 
yet laid." This tomb was discovered many years 
ago by General Gordon and is often spoken of as 
Gordon's Tomb, also called the Garden Tomb. 
When excavating about it a wall was found which 
proved to be a garden wall the end of which butts 
up against Mount Calvary. One writer who has 
examined every nook and corner says in regard 
to this tomb : "It stands in the mass of rock which 
forms the northern boundary of a garden which 
literally runs into the hillside to the west of Mount 
Calvary itself." 

One of the first things noted as the writer went 
into this tomb was the fact that it is a Jewish tomb. 
They made their tombs different from those of any 



A World-Famous City — Jerusalem 121 

other people. That it was a "rich man's tomb" is 
also very certain, as is the fact that it dates back 
to the Herodian period in which Jesus lived. There 
is also some frescoed work upon it showing that 
it was held sacred by the early Christians. Then 
the "rolling stone" and the groove in which it was 
placed is very interesting. This was something 
like a gigantic grindstone which rolled in the 
groove and was large enough to cover the opening 
when the tomb was closed. 

While in and about Jerusalem the writer visited 
the famous "Upper Room," the "Jew's Wailing 
Place," the "Mosque of Omar," which stands upon 
the very spot where Solomon's Temple used to 
stand, the "Way of Sorrows," the "Ecco Homo 
Arch," the "Castle of Antonio," "Tower of David," 
the "Pool of Siloam," and a great many other in- 
teresting places. The Garden of Gethsemane and 
the Mount of Olives as well as scores of other 
places were fascinating but it would take a large 
volume to describe them all. 



CHAPTER XVII 
A World-Famous River — ^The Jordan 

^TpHE great Mississippi and Amazon rivers are 
-*■ noted for their length; the Hudson and the 
Rhine for their scenery; the Thames and Tiber for 
the great cities on their banks; the Volga and the 
Dneiper for their commerce; the Nile and the Yel- 
low rivers for their annual overflow, the former to 
give life and the latter to destroy; and the Eu- 
phrates and Tigress for the ruins of mighty cities 
of other days. 

But this chapter is a description of a river only 
a little more than two hundred miles in length, no 
scenery to speak of near it, never a great city on 
its banks, no sail or steamboat for commerce ever 
traveled upon its waters, no one scarcely ever 
cared whether it was within its banks or not, and 
not even any ruins worth while along its shores; 
and yet it is today and has been for centuries the 
most famous river on the face of the earth. 

It is the River Jordan, and a glimpse of it brings 
forth some of the most wonderful characteristics 
possessed by any river, as well as many historical 
events that make their memories dear to the hearts 
of men and women wherever civilization has 
found its way. Unlike all other rivers which rise 
in some elevated place and flow toward the sea 
level, nearly every mile of this river is below the 
surface of the ocean. 

At the foot of Mount Herman in northern Pales- 
tine there is a spring of water that is almost ice 
cold. That spring is but a few hundred feet above 
sea level. The water from this spring is joined 
by that of several other springs and small rivulets 



A World-Famous River— The Jordan 123 

caused by the melting snows on the mountain, 
flows to the south a distance of a few miles, and 
forms a small lake which is about three miles wide 
and four miles long. This lake is just on a level 
with the Mediterranean Sea which is only about 
thirty miles to the west. This is spoken of in 
the Bible as "the waters of Merom." From the 
southern end of this lake the Jordan begins. 

The first ten and one-half miles the water falls 
six hundred and eighty feet to where it enters the 
Sea of Galilee. This pear-shaped body of water 
is a little more than a dozen miles long and half 
that wide and is surrounded by mountains. The 
river enters through a small canyon at the north- 
west and passes out through another canyon at the 
south end. Sometimes the wind will rush down 
the canyon at the northwest and in a few moments 
the waters of the lake are like a great whirlpool. 
These sudden storms often imperil any small boats 
which may be out on the sea as was the case in 
Bible times when the Master was sleeping and his 
disciples awakened him, saying: "Lord, save us; 
we perish." 

From this body of water to the point where the 
Jordan empties into the Dead Sea is only sixty-five 
miles by airline, but the way the river winds like 
a gigantic serpent, one w^ould travel twice that dis- 
tance were he to go in a boat. This Jordan valley 
is from four to fourteen miles wide and the moun- 
tains on each side rise to the height of from fifteen 
hundred to three thousand feet. 

Within this Jordan valley is what might be 
called an inner valley which is from a quarter of 
a mile to a mile wide, and from fifty to something 
like seventy-five feet deep. This might be called 
the river bottom and the river winds like a snake 



124 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

in this smaller valley. That boy was a wise lad 
who wrote a description of the Jordan as follows : 
"The Jordan is a river which runs straight down 
through the middle of Palestine, but if you look at 
it very closely, it wriggles about." When the river 
overflows it simpy covers the bottom of this inner 
valley. 

As noted above, the Sea of Galilee is six hundred 
and eighty feet below the level of the ocean. Dur- 
ing this sixty-five miles (airline) to the Dead Sea, 
it falls more than six hundred feet more, so that 
the Dead Sea itself is about thirteen hundred feet 
below the level of the Mediterranean Sea which 
is only forty miles west. Should a canal be cut 
across to the Mediterranean which would let the 
water through, not only would the Dead Sea and 
the River Jordan disappear, but the Sea of Galilee 
be included in a great inland sea east of Palestine. 

"While the Jordan as well as other smaller 
streams flow continually into the Dead Sea, it is 
said that it never raises an inch. This, with the 
fact that this body of water has no outlet what- 
ever, makes a problem to which geologists and 
scientific men have failed to give a satisfactory 
solution. Of course, the water evaporates very 
rapidly, but in the spring when the Jordan over- 
flows and pours a much greater volume of water 
into it, how does it come that it evaporates so 
much faster than at any other time in the year? 

When the writer visited the Dead Sea the water 
was as smooth as glass. The water is so salty that 
a human body will not sink in it at all. Should the 
body go under it will bob up again like a cork. I 
have never learned to swim; in deep water simply 
cannot keep my feet up, but in the Dead Sea they 
could not be kept down, and of course I could 



A W or Id-Famous River — The Jordan 125 

swim like a duck. Nothing grows near this body 
of water. Everything about it is dead. Like some 
people, it is always receiving but never giving. At 
the mouth of the Jordan one can see dead fish 
floating on the water. When carried by the swift 
current into this salty water they soon die. 

The River Jordan runs very swiftly. It is about 
the size of the Des Moines river in northern Iowa, 
not nearly so large as this river in the southern 
part of the state. At the fords of the Jordan I 
waded out into the stream but the current was so 
swift that I did not attempt to go entirely across. 

Here at this ford occurred some of the greatest 
events of Bible history. On the plain just east of 
the river the Children of Israel were encamped 
when Moses went up on Mount Nebo, looked over 
the Promised Land, folded his arms and peace- 
fully passed into the great beyond. It must have 
been an exciting day for the entire camp when 
they last saw their great leader become a mere 
speck on the mountain side and finally disappear 
altogether. They not only never saw him again 
but they never were able to find a trace of his body. 

There must have been much speculation among 
these people as to what became of Moses until in 
some miraculous way Joshua was informed that 
the great leader was dead and that he must now 
take charge and lead the people across the Jordan 
into the Promised Land. After thirty days mourn- 
ing for Moses, the great company marched down 
to the river; it was opened for them and they 
crossed on dry ground. The record also states that 
this crossing was at the time when the river was 
out of its banks and this whole bottom, nearly 
a mile wide, was a rushing torrent. Perhaps this 
accounts for the fact that the enemies who had 



126 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

taken possession of the Promised Land were to- 
tally unprepared for their coming, feeling secure 
while the river was so high and dangerous. 

Another great event which occurred was when 
the old prophet Elijah and the young prophet 
Elisha crossed the river together and the young 
man came back alone later on for Elijah was 
taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. Now fifty 
young men had followed the two prophets to the 
river and when Elisha came back alone and told 
them how the chariot of fire came after Elijah they 
simply couldn't believe it and finally went across 
and searched the mountains for three days trying 
to find his body. Failing to find the body, together 
with the fact that they had witnessed the parting 
of the waters when the two men went over and 
the same when Elisha came back alone, was suffi- 
cient evidence to them that the young prophet had 
told the truth. 

Evidently this event created a great impression 
all over the country and young men came to the 
school for the prophets which was located near, 
that the buildings had to be enlarged. Every stu- 
dent borrowed an ax and went to work felling 
trees along the river bank. In one case the ax flew 
off the handle and went into the water. The 
young man was greatly troubled about this for it 
was a borrowed one. Word reached the prophet 
Elisha and he came out and caused the ax to come 
to the surface. , 

But perhaps the greatest of all events that oc- 
curred at this place was the baptism of Christ. 
John the Baptist must have been the Billy Sunday 
of his day for the crowds that came to hear him 
were immense. One day among others who came 
was a fine looking young man who asked for bap- 



A World-Famous River — The Jordan 127 

tism. But the preacher knew him and refused, 
saying that he was unworthy to do this, but the 
young man, who was no other than the Master 
himself, explained the situation and the preacher 
hesitated no longer. 

In connection with the River Jordan and the 
bodies of water at each end, it is interesting to note 
that the first man to take the level and give to 
the world the remarkable facts about the physi- 
cal characteristics of this wonderful and world- 
famous river, was an American. His name was 
Lynch and he was a lieutenant in the American 
Navy. At the close of the Mexican War, our Gov- 
ernment permitted Lieutenant Lynch to take ten 
seamen and two small boats and make this explo- 
ration. The boats were taken overland to the 
Sea of Galilee and launched and this man and his 
helpers went down the river to the Dead Sea in 
them, and thus gave to the world the remarkable 
facts about this wonderful country. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
The Playground of Moses — Egypt 

NEXT to Palestine, Egypt is perhaps the most 
interesting country on the globe to visit. For 
great antiquity and splendor no land surpasses 
this cradle of civilization. The science, art and 
architecture of the Egyptians is the marvel of 
leading men even to this day. The schools of 
Egypt produced the greatest characters of all ages 
before the coming of Christ. The wisdom of this 
ancient race as well as some of the engineering 
feats command the respect of these modern days. 

Take a map of Texas and California together, 
place a map of modern Egypt upon it and you will 
have enough left to make West Virginia. Ancient 
Egypt was only about one-fourth as large as 
modern Egypt. The greater portion of the land 
always has been and is today a desert. The thir- 
teen million people practically live on the narrow 
valley of the Nile in a strip of territory from five 
to fifteen miles wide except down near the sea. 

Not far from Cairo is a place called Fayoum. 
The name means "A Thousand Days." A mis- 
sionary told me how it got this name. When 
Joseph was an old man some of the younger 
officers wanted him deposed and they said that he 
was no longer fit to be at the head of affairs. They 
said that near the city was a great swamp and if 
he were capable he would have drained this land. 
They, of course, did not think this was possible, 
hence the suggestion. 

Putting their heads together they went to the 
old councillor and persuaded him to put the impos- 
sible task up to Joseph believing that his failure 



The Playground of Moses — Egypt 129 

would be so ignominious that he would be de- 
posed. At once Joseph called Egypt's greatest civil 
engineers, outlined his plan, took hundreds of la- 
borers, went to work and in sixty days the swamp 
was completely drained. When the old adviser 
was taken out to see how well the work was done, 
he was so amazed that he exclaimed : "That would 
have been a mighty work for a thousand days," 
and it is called Fayoum to this day. Today the 
gardens and orchards of Fayoum are among the 
finest and most productive in all Egypt. 

No one can go over this land without walking 
in the footsteps of Moses, for Egypt was his play- 
ground, Of course I was shown the exact ( ?) spot 
where the little ark was found among the bull- 
rushes in the River Nile. When Pharoah's daugh- 
ter saw the little child she was touched and thus 
the destiny of a nation hung on the cry of a little 
child. Miriam, the sister of Moses appeared just 
in the nick of time and when the princess told her 
to call one of the Hebrew women her feet hardly 
touched the ground in her effort to get her mother 
to the spot. When the little hands were held out 
toward the joyous mother she was told to take the 
child and nurse him and thus she was paid wages 
for bringing up her own child upon whom the 
sentence of death had been pronounced. 

Not far from the spot mentioned above is the 
famous Nilometer that Moses looked upon many a 
time. As I went down the steps to get a nearer 
view of this measuring apparatus a panorama of 
the old days seemed to come before my eyes. The 
very life of the people depended upon the overflow 
of the Nile. June 17th was one of the great days 
for on that day almost as regular as the sunrise the 
upper Nile began to rise. A few days later an 



130 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

anxious crowd gathered to see the water mark on 
the Kilometer begin to come up. About July third 
the criers started on their daily rounds through 
the city announcing the measurement. If it was 
up to normal the people were happy and if not 
they were sad. When the rise was about twenty 
feet the "Completion" or "Abundance of the Nile" 
was announced and preparation was made for the 
opening of the canal w^hich time was a regular 
jubilee among the people. 

All night long before this cereriiony rockets were 
fired at intervals and in the morning at the ap- 
pointed time the governor and those with him 
"cut the dam" and the inundation started. For 
more than a month the canals were full, and the 
fields were flooded and a thin coat of fine pul- 
verized soil was spread over the ground like a 
carpet and when seed was placed in the ground 
it grew like in a hothouse. At Cairo the Nile would 
often rise twenty-five feet. 

During these days a great deal of irrigating is 
done all through the season. In some places pon- 
derous machinery is used but to this day a large 
portion of work is done by hand. One of the 
most common sights along the Nile is the shadoof. 
This is a long pole with a weight on one end and a 
bucket on the other. Hour after hour half dressed 
men and women will dip up water and pour it into 
irrigation ditches. Great wooden waterwheels are 
also used and an ox or donkey or man or woman 
or a blinded camel will go round and round and 
you can hear this wooden wheel squeak for a mile. 
The little buckets on the waterwheel keep an al- 
most endless stream flowing into the irrigation 
ditch. 



The Playground of Moses — Egypt 131 

Another method is a sort of a paddle wheel on 
a windlass upon which a native will walk hour 
after hour. This turns a kind of an endless chain 
something like the old-fashioned cistern pump 
with which we are all familiar. In Egypt nearly 
everything is done by hand as man power is 
cheaper than machinery. I saw them grading a 
railroad with wheelbarrows, not even a cart or a 
donkey on the job. The great bridge across the 
Nile used to be opened by hand and boats pulled 
through by hand. It was a most interesting sight 
to the writer for a hundred or more men to get 
hold of a large rope and begin to heave-to. Soon 
the boat would begin to move slowly. 

As a rule people in Eg>^pt are very poor. The 
plague of flies has not yet ceased in Egypt. Chil- 
dren are dirty and often diseased and the streets 
of the old portion of the city of Cairo literally 
swarm with them. While the people generally 
look quite hearty and well fed, yet beggars are 
everyw^here. "Backsheesh" is about the first word 
the little child learns to speak and the last word 
an old beggar lisps before he dies. From noon 
until two-thirty or three o'clock shops are closed 
and thousands of people drop down where they 
are and go to sleep. Riding through old Cairo at 
this time of day my donkey had to pick his way, 
often stepping over people who were sound asleep. 

Many of the customs of Egj^ptians always have 
been diff'erent from those of other nations. Here 
women seldom pray to any god but men pray to 
all of them. Women carry burdens on their 
shoulders while men carry them on their heads. 
Women buy and sell in the market while their 
men sit at home and spin. The daughter instead 
of the son is supposed to care for the old folks 



132 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

when they become feeble and helpless. In knead- 
ing dough they use their feet while in handling 
mud they use their hands. Other peoples consider 
themselves above the beasts but the Egyptians 
made gods of the beasts and worshipped them. 
When an ancient enemy attacked Egypt, dogs, 
cats, and other beasts were driven at the head of 
the army and the Egyptians would surrender 
rather than run the risk of killing their sacred 
animals. 

The people in Egyptian cities do not eat their 
evening meal until from eight to ten at night. The 
restaurants have their tables in the streets and the 
people eat and shop at the same time. Watching 
the people at a large restaurant in Cairo, one 
night, I wrote down a list of the articles offered 
for sale while they were eating their evening meal. 
Here is the list: Alarm clocks, nuts, bread, lead 
pencils, fish, knives, cards, live chickens, cigars, 
cigarettes, cakes, eggs, mutton, matches, melons, 
watches, flowers, rugs, fancy boxes, stands, socks, 
perfumes, balloons, fruits of all kinds, slippers, 
canes, neckties, whips and guns. 

In addition to these venders, blind beggars and 
cripples, traveling musicians, gamblers with all 
kinds of devices, fortune tellers with wheels of 
fortune and many others were among the people 
all the time. After eating, many of the people 
drink wine and play cards until the early morn- 
ing. All this time nearly everybody was talking 
at once and it was a regular circus to watch them. 
Several times hot words were passed but as a 
rule the people were in good humor and seemed 
to be having a good time. 

One of the much used and often abused beasts 
in Egypt is the camel. Riding a camel for the first 



The Playground of Moses — Egypt 133 

time is quite an experience. The beast will lie 
down, but it is continually snarling and when it 
gets up you go through all kinds of motions. As I 
rode around the great pyramid and sphinx on one 
of these beasts the swing was not unlike that of a 
great rocking chair and while this ship of the 
desert did not seem to be going fast I noticed that 
the driver was running and the donkey alongside 
was on the gallop most of the time. 

At the time I was in Egypt one could purchase a 
fairly good camel for a little less than one hundred 
dollars. These beasts can live on next to nothing. 
They will strip a shrub of leaves and stems. A 
camel can eat and drink enough at one time to last 
it a week or ten days. The natives say that it lives 
on the fat of its hump. When a camel is weary 
from a long march across the desert the hump 
almost disappears and then as it eats its fill the 
hump becomes strong and hard again. It will 
carry a burden of from five to six hundred pounds. 

The city of Cairo is full of interesting sights. 
The streets of the better portion of the city are 
well paved and the buildings substantial and sev- 
eral stories high. The streets are sprinkled by 
hand. These men carry a skin of water — often 
half a barrel — and by means of a nozzle they throw 
it everjnvhere. There are many beautiful parks 
and drives in and about the city. The wonderful 
palms and other trees furnish shade and although 
the sun shines very hot it is quite cool under these 
trees. 

Runners go ahead of carriages containing promi- 
nent persons telling people to get out of the way 
for so and so is coming. Many people stop and 
look as they go by. An interesting sight was a 
wedding procession. It was headed by a band and 



134 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

an enclosed carriage with a black cloth over it 
contained the bride while the groom walked along- 
side holding on to the carriage. Following along 
behind on foot were the relatives and the rabble 
of the streets. My guide explained that when a 
wedding takes place a cloth is hung from the win- 
dow and kept there for three days so one can go 
through the city and pick out the homes where 
they have had a wedding within that time. 

One of the lost arts is the Egyptian method of 
embalming the bodies of the dead. It seems that 
they believed that the spirit will return to the 
body in the course of time and they undertook to 
preserve the body as near perfect as possible until 
that time arrived. There are multiplied thousands 
of these mummies in Egypt. In the great museum 
in Cairo the mummy of the Pharoah who made 
the burdens of the enslaved Hebrews heavier can 
be seen today. Little did he think that in thou- 
sands of years the descendants of these people 
would spit in the face of his mummy, but they 
often do that very thing. 

In the old days it is said that they used to license 
robbery and govern it by law. The spoil was 
taken to the robber chief and the victim could go 
and claim his property and by paying a certain 
per cent of its value recover the property, after 
which the man who did the stealing could secure 
from the chief his portion of the proceeds. We 
laugh at this but how much worse is it than some 
of the things we license today? 

I had a most pleasant visit in the home of Dr. 
Ewing, a United Presbyterian missionary. The 
United Presbyterian people have done and are 
doing a most remarkable work in Egypt. A visit 
to their mission in Cairo was wonderfully interest- 



The Playground of Moses — Egypt 135 

ing to say the least. I was presented with some 
coins there, the smallest of which was worth, at 
that time, one-sixteenth of a penny, but the mis- 
sionaries assured me that those coins were seldom 
used except in church collections. 



CHAPTER XIX 

A Country With a Thousand Rivers — 
Venezuela 

"XT'EARS ago two miners worked together for 
-*• months and finally came to know each other 
as Tom and Jack. One day Tom was not well and 
could not do much but watch Jack dig. After 
noting some movements of the body that seemed 
familiar he said: "Jack, where did you come 
from?" The two men sat down and talked of boy- 
hood days and found that they were born in the 
same community and had played together when 
they were small boys. Here they had worked 
together for months without knowing that they 
were neighbors; they actually got up and shook 
hands with each other. 

Venezuela is our nearest neighbor to the south. 
This country is nearer to Florida than New Or- 
leans is to New York and yet we have lived side 
by side for four hundred years and hardly knew 
we were neighbors. We might have been friends 
and greatly assisted each other all these years. Is 
it not about time we were getting acquainted and 
shaking hands with each other? 

It is surprising to know that Venezuela is as 
large as Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, the two Vir- 
ginias, North and South Carolina and Georgia 
combined. It is a country that has a thousand 
rivers. In some parts of it you can travel for days 
in regions where as yet no white man has ever set 
his foot. One writer says that of all the countries 



A Country With a Thousand Rivers — Venezuela 137 

in the world Venezuela is the one for which God 
has done the most and man has done the least. 

This great country has been called the hunting 
ground of South America. This is not so much 
because of the abundance of game, although all 
kinds of wild animals are plentiful; it has been 
given this appellation because of its unstable gov- 
ernment. Its treasury has been looted again and 
again. Even the president of Venezuela was for 
years a criminal. He robbed merchants of other 
countries who tried to do business with his gov- 
ernment. He imprisoned those who refused to 
assist him and ran things in a high-handed way. 
Business firms of other lands found this out and 
did not care to do business with such a country 
or help develop its resources in any way. 

We are not ashamed of our revolution in 1776 
for its purpose was to gain our independence. 
During the past seventy or eighty years Venezuela 
has had more than a half hundred revolutions but 
generally they were gotten up to give an excuse 
for pillage and robbery rather than to make a 
better country or government. Things are better 
now, however, and a new day is dawning for these 
unhappy people. 

The main port or entrance to this country is La 
Guaira and sailors say it is about the worst port 
to enter in the world. This port city contains 
about fifteen thousand people and has but a single 
street. The high mountains are so near the sea 
that there is only a narrow strip of land at the 
foot and on this narrow strip the city is built. The 
sea is nearly always rough and the weather always 
hot. How people can endure such extreme heat 
all the time is a mystery. 



138 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

All along this coast strip of Venezuela are plan- 
tations generally covered with cocoa trees. From 
the beans of this tree are made cocoa and choco- 
late. Coffee is also a staple crop. At the piers 
will be noticed bags of coffee and cocoa beans, 
great quantities of rubber and piles of hides. As 
we are nearer to them than other foreign coun- 
tries we now use much of their products. The 
population of this great country is only a little 
more than that of the state of Iowa. 

Back only six or eight miles, in a direct line, 
from La Guaira and the blue waters of the Carib- 
bean sea, high up in the mountains is a great valley 
in which is located the capital city of Venezuela. 
This city, Caracas, is about as large as Sioux City, 
Iowa, but to get to it is some job. It is only about 
twenty-five miles by rail and this railroad was 
about as difficult to build as any of our mountain 
railroads. The tracks cling to the mountain sides 
almost like vines cling to brick walls, and the 
curves are so short that one riding in the end 
coach can nearly reach the engineer. One can 
look hundreds of feet into caverns and gorges that 
seem almost like the bottomless pit. 

Venezuela got its name from Venice, Italy, in 
the following way. One of the earliest explorers 
sailing along the coast saw the Indian villages 
built on piles in the water along the shore and was 
reminded of the Italian city and called the country 
Venezuela, which means "little Venice." 

Here lived Las Casas, a priest who was the In- 
dian's greatest champion in the early days and 
who is said to be the father of African Slavery in 
the new world. It was he who suggested that 
negroes be imported to labor in the fields and 
mines that the Indians might have an easier time. 



A Country With a Thousand Rivers — Venezuela 139 

Brought from Africa to work that the Indians 
might rest, these black people became the slaves 
of all. 

Venezuela was the birthplace of the great Simon 
Bolivar and other patriots who were fired with 
enthusiasm against Spanish oppression and liter- 
ally gave their lives that the colonies might be free. 
Even the coins of the old days were stamped with 
Bolivar's name and everywhere he is revered as 
the George Washington of that country. 

In one of the large museums is a room in which 
are kept the great liberator's clothing, saddle, 
boots and spears and these things are as sacred 
to them as the Ark of the Covenant was to the 
Jews. In this same room is a portrait of Wash- 
ington upon which is the inscription : "This picture 
of the liberator of North America is sent by his 
adopted son to him who acquired equal glory in 
South America." 

Through this country runs one of the world's 
greatest rivers, the Orinoco, which with its tribu- 
taries furnishes more than four thousand miles of 
navigable rivers. This great river system drains 
a territor\^ of three hundred and sixty thousand 
square miles. 

It is rather strange that in this country with 
lovely and productive valleys whose irrigated 
orchards and gardens make a regular paradise, 
that the farming classes should be poor and igno- 
rant, without ambition or education and be satis- 
fied to live in comfortless, tumble-down huts with- 
out furniture or any of the improvements that 
make life worth living. But such is the case. Here 
where there are millions of coffee trees, fields of 
sugar cane and orchards of oranges, lemons and 
all kinds of tropical fruit, where the farmer could 



140 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

be happiest, he is about the most miserable crea- 
ture that could be found. In his miserable home 
he has no lamp or candle, no books or papers of 
any sort. 

While Venezuela is rich in mines and forests, 
grain and livestock, coffee and rubber, dyes and 
medicines, gold and copper, lead and coal, to say 
nothing of tropical fruits and vegetables, she has 
another product that makes her known the world 
around. This is asphalt, or mineral pitch as it is 
sometimes called. This makes the smoothest 
street paving of any material known. It is also 
used extensively for calking vessels, making water- 
proof roofs, lining cold storage plants, making 
varnishes as well as shoe blacking as well as in 
a hundred other ways. 

At the mouth of the Orinoco river is the Island 
of Trinidad upon which is the famous pitch lake. 
This is the most noted deposit of asphalt known. 
This lake is a mile and a half across and looks, 
from a distance, like a pond surrounded with trees. 
Nearing it, however, one soon discovers that it 
contains anything but water. 

This material is of a dark green color and at 
the border is hard and strong enough to bear 
quite a heavy weight, but near the center it is 
almost like a boiling mass. The asphalt is dug 
from the edges of the lake, loaded on carts, hauled 
to the port and from there shipped to nearly 
every country on the globe. Two hundred thou- 
sand tons per year have been taken from the lake 
and yet there is no hole to be seen. Negro work- 
men dig it to the depth of a couple of feet and in 
a week or so the hole is level with the top again. 

The government of Trinidad has leased the 
asphalt lake to an American company and the in- 



A Country With a Thousand Rivers — Venezuela 141 

come amounts to nearly a quarter of a million 
dollars per year. Nobody knows how deep the 
asphalt bed is for borings have been made a hun- 
dred feet or more deep and there was no bottom. 
The heat is intense all around this lake. 

About fifty miles from the coast in Venezuela 
there is another asphalt lake and the material in 
it is of finer quality than at Trinidad, but it is hard 
to reach. Some believe that the two deposits are 
connected by a subterranean passage and supplied 
from the same source. It was from this inland 
lake of asphalt that the material was procured to 
protect the New York subway tunnels from 
moisture, so it is said. 

In the central part of Venezuela are the llanos 
which are said to be about the best pasture lands 
in the world. The chief industry here is cattle 
raising. More than two million head of cattle f eedl 
upon these llanos, but they are capable of feeding 
many times that nmnber. 

One reason why the people of this country have 
no ambition to lay up for the future or even get 
large herds of cattle has been because of the nu- 
merous revolutions of the past. Every time they 
have succeeded in getting large herds of cattle or 
stores of grain a revolution would come and their 
property be seized and often destroyed. 

No people can be prosperous and happy without 
a stable government, schools and colleges and the 
influences that are uplifting. This is the great 
need of many of the countries of South America 
today. Just here it is well for the farmers of this 
country to congratulate themselves. The writer of 
these lines has traveled nearly all over the world 
and having been a farmer all his early life it is 



142 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

only natural that he would try to study the prob- 
lems of the farmers in all lands. 

It is therefore with pride that one can say that 
considering all the complex problems with which 
the American farmer has to grapple, he is a hun- 
dred times better off than his brother farmers in 
any country in the world. He is more independ- 
ent, has more privileges, more opportunities for 
making the most of life, has higher ideals, and 
lives better than the tillers of the soil in any other 
country on earth. 



CHAPTER XX 
A Land of Great Industries — Brazil 

YOU could take a map of the whole United 
States, lay it down on Brazil and still have 
room for England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Den- 
mark and Switzerland left. Walk around Brazil 
and you have traveled a distance equal to two- 
thirds of a journey around the globe. If every 
man, woman and child in the United States were 
placed in Matto Grasso, the state in Brazil where 
Roosevelt discovered the "River of Doubt," in 1914, 
that state would not have as many people to the 
square mile as England has at this moment. If 
all the people on earth were placed in Brazil the 
population of that country would not be as dense 
as that of Belgium today. 

Brazil could produce enough rubber to supply 
the whole world with automobile tires for genera- 
tions and never have to plant another rubber tree 
to do it, that is, of course, if all her rubber forests 
could be utilized. From a sifigle Brazilian port 
is shipped one-fourth of all the coffee used in the 
whole world. In a single Brazilian state there are 
ten thousand coffee plantations that have more 
than fifty thousand trees each and six hundred of 
them have more than one hundred thousand trees 
each. 

Brazil might be called the "jewel box" of the 
world. Her diamond fields rival those of South 
Africa. Her mines produced a single stone that 
sold for fifteen million dollars. One writer says: 
"Of all the fabulous tales related of bonanza 
princes the palm for extravagance belongs to the 
early mining days of Brazil, when horses were 



144 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

shod with gold, when lawyers supported their 
pleadings before judges with gifts of what ap- 
peared at first sight to be oranges and bananas, 
but proved to be solid gold imitations, when 
guests were entertained at dinner with pebbles of 
gold in their soup and when nuggets were the most 
convenient medium of exchange in the money 
market." 

Would you like to go nutting? Brazil has the 
greatest groves on earth. Some of these nut trees 
grow to a height of a hundred and fifty feet and 
have a girth of twenty feet, fifty feet up from the 
ground. A single tree is said to produce as many 
as three tons of nuts during a season. In the trees 
of Brazil are found sixteen hundred species of 
birds. There are parrots galore and sixty-five 
varieties of woodpeckers have been catalogued. 
One family of birds in Brazil are said to be devout 
Christians as they never work but six days in the 
week. 

One would naturally suppose that in Brazil the 
weather would be extremely hot as the equator 
runs across the great Amazon valley. But the 
nights are cool and sunstroke is unknown. Frost 
can be seen in the highlands at certain times in 
the year. While fevers rage in parts of the land, 
yet most of the country is conducive to good 
health. The very dangerous parts of the Amazon 
valley are limited to certain parts of the country. 

Some years ago at a contest in Paris between 
twelve hundred children the first prize for healthy 
appearance was given to a boy born in Manaos of 
Amazonian parents. This city is in the very heart 
of the jungle in the Amazon valley. There is one 
authenticated case of a man in this valley who 
lived to be one hundred and forty-five years old. 



A Land of Great Industries — Brazil 145 

In the dense forests of the uplands of Brazil 
there are people who are living in the stone age 
of culture. They are practically wild tribes who 
know nothing about the use of metal, in fact, they 
know but little about civilization. They are said 
to be ignorant of common food such as bananas 
and rice. They seem to have no idea of a supreme 
being, believe in a soul that goes wandering about 
after death. 

In some parts of Brazil rice is cultivated quite 
extensively and it makes a cheap food. It is said 
that in one place a man from Louisiana is running 
an experimental rice farm showing the Brazilian 
farmers how to cultivate Japanese rice. Rather 
strange, isn't it, that United States farmers should 
be teaching the Brazilian farmers Japanese agri- 
culture? 

A peculiar thing about the land of Brazil is the 
absence of earth worms. In our country these 
worms improve the physical condition of the soil 
but there this lack is made up by the multiplied 
millions of ants that burrow down deep into the 
earth. In our country, too, the chemical changes 
of winter help prepare the soil for the coming 
crops, but in Brazil there is no winter season when 
the land "sleeps" and it does not seem to be 
necessary. 

While in the great rubber industry of Brazil the 
trees grow and produce with but little if any culti- 
vation, this is not true of the coffee trees. They 
have to be cultivated and carefully looked after. 
Insect pests that are so destructive to coffee trees 
in many countries, are almost absent in Brazil and 
this fact has not a little to do with making this the 
greatest coffee country in the world. In the state 



146 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

of Sao Paulo almost the entire energies of the peo- 
ple are absorbed in the coffee industry. 

This state is a little larger than Colorado and is 
the most powerful state of the twenty that make 
up the United States of Brazil. The name of the 
capital is the same as that of the state and the city 
of Sao Paulo is about as large as Saint Paul, Min- 
nesota. It is noted for its beauty and industry. 
The climate is delightful, always cool, but never 
freezing cold. With more than one hundred ele- 
mentary schools besides numerous high schools 
and colleges it is perhaps the greatest educational 
center of the country. Near this city is the largest 
coffee plantation in the world. It contains some- 
thing like eight million trees and takes about eight 
thousand people to run it. This one plantation 
produces twenty million pounds of coffee annually 
and there are thirty railroad stations upon it. 

A well kept coffee tree is about twelve feet high 
when full grown. The leaves are a shiny green, 
a little like holly. The trees bloom in September 
and fill the air with fragrance. As the white 
blossoms fade the berries begin to form. May is 
the harvest time. Harvest hands come in large 
numbers as they do in Kansas or the Dakotas dur- 
ing the wheat harvest. Workmen are paid accord- 
ing to the amount they gather and some of them 
gather fifty pounds a day. 

The coffee berries are first stripped from the 
tree then raked and piled into baskets. Next they 
are run through a machine that takes the bean out 
of the covering, then into tanks of water where 
they are thoroughly washed and then comes the 
drying process. It used to take weeks to get the 
coffee beans well dried and men had to watch and 
keep stirring the piles continually, but quite re- 



A Land of Great Industries — Brazil 147 

cently a new process was discovered by which 
they are dried by steam. 

After the coffee beans are thoroughly dried they 
are run through rollers that break the skin cover- 
ing and great ventilators blow the chaff away. 
Then the beans are poured into a gigantic sieve 
with different sized holes which are chutes in real- 
ity and from which endless streams of coffee 
graded according to size run into a large room. 
At each stream stand women who pick out im- 
perfect or damaged grains. The coffee is then 
sacked and is ready for shipment. The ordinary 
bag of coffee weighs about one hundred and 
twenty pounds. Santo is the great coffee port and 
here can be seen ships from every civilized land 
taking on cargoes of coffee. If it is well kept 
coffee gets better with age, so it can be piled in 
great warehouses for months or even years and 
not deteriorate. Nearly a dozen million bags of 
coffee are shipped from Santo annually and as we 
are the greatest coffee drinkers in the world about 
half of the entire crop comes to us. 

Formerly many of the coffee plantations were 
w^orked by slaves. Negroes were brought from 
South Africa, as they were brought to work in the 
cotton fields in the south in anti-slavery days. In 
the year 1888 Brazil freed her slaves and the sud- 
den freeing of a half million slaves almost demor- 
alized the coffee and sugar industries of the coun- 
try. Many of these negroes thought that freedom 
meant that they would never have to work any 
more and they became loafers and often criminals. 
Of course thousands of them drifted to the great 
centers of population and Brazil has had and is 
still having her share of race troubles. 



148 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

Many of the workers on the coffee plantations 
at present are ItaUans. They come in large num- 
bers to work on these estates. Each family is 
given a certain number of trees to look after; 
sometimes a single family will take care of several 
thousand trees. They have to do a lot of hoeing 
and weeding. The soil is almost red and these 
workmen take on largely the color of the soil as 
their faces and clothes are stained with red dust 
and water. Families are furnished houses to live 
in and they live their own lives as if they were in 
their home country. 

After coffee and rubber comes sugar. For many 
years Brazil furnished more sugar than any other 
country; now there are a half dozen countries 
ahead of her in the production of sugar. This is 
largely accounted for, not so much because of ina- 
bility to produce, as because of the antiquated 
methods in use. There are places in the country 
where it is said that the same variety of sugar 
has been grown for two hundred years and that 
without any attempt on the part of the planters to 
restore the soil. 

One of the first things ever exported from Brazil 
was tobacco. This weed has been grown there 
ever since the country was discovered. Modern 
methods of culture are now being used so more 
of it will be produced than ever. They say, too, 
that Brazil produces as fine a quality of tobacco 
as Cuba. Cotton is also produced in large quan- 
tities. 

The Brazilians are an interesting people. I like 
them. They are always courteous and polite. Men 
often tip their hats to each other and kiss each 
other's hands. In Rio de Janeiro nearly everyone 
is well dressed. The women are good looking. 



A Land of Great Industries — Brazil 149 

The Brazil people are more friendly than any 
other South American people. The language, ex- 
cept among the Italians and other foreigners, is 
largely Portuguese while in practically all other 
South American countries the people speak 
Spanish. 

Although Brazil has millions of acres of the 
best timber in the world I never saw a wooden 
building in their great capital city. In Rio, nearly 
every automobile factory in the United States is 
represented. In this land of rubber they have no 
manufacturing plants to utilize it. Wages for 
common laborers are low and yet the people only 
work part of the time. In coaling a ship the men 
will work like beavers for a couple of hours and 
then sit down and smoke and talk as long and no 
urging them to work seems to do any good. One 
can make a living there with half the work it takes 
here and that is all they care for. 

The Brazilians have some odd customs. People 
always carry their burdens on their heads. Bas- 
kets as large as barrels are carried in this way 
without a bit of trouble. They say that four men 
will carry a heavy piano on their heads but I 
never saw them moving one. On almost every 
street there are venders of sweetmeats, vegetables, 
brooms, baskets and furniture. I saw one vender 
with two dozen brooms, a dozen mops, two chairs, 
and a lot of other truck on his head. He had the 
chairs hooked on the brooms, baskets on the chairs 
and a lot of other stuff piled up so that he looked 
like a moving express wagon. 

Streets in Brazilian cities are often named for 
days or months. I noticed one of the prominent 
streets in Reo named "13th of September," an- 
other "15th of November." Rio de Janeiro means 



150 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

"River of January." I never saw a chimney in the 
city, yet the streets and many of the houses are 
washed every night. Everything is shining. They 
seem to have a wonderful appreciation of beauty 
and never in any other city in the world have I 
seen more beautiful or artistic shop windows. 

Everybody seemed to be in a good humor. Po- 
licemen are small of stature, but they direct the 
street traffic in a most wonderful way. Everybody 
smiles and there is no loud talking, or drunken- 
ness. The national drink is coffee and there are 
coffee shops with tables and cups everywhere. Men 
often drink a cup or two of coffee a dozen times 
a day. There are hundreds of coffee shops in Rio. 
Of course, liquor is sold in many places, but it is 
mostly drunk by foreigners. I never saw a Bra- 
zilian drinking liquor in their capital city. 



CHAPTER XXI 
Uruguay and Paraguay 

URUGUAY is the smallest of the South Ameri- 
can republics. It is just a little larger than the 
state of Oklahoma. It is a Little wedge between 
Brazil and Argentina and is, all in all, the most 
advanced country in South America. At the time 
of the visit of the writer it was the only country 
in South America whose dollar was worth a hun- 
dred cents. The population is about a million and 
a quarter — eighteen to the square mile. The prin- 
cipal industry is stock raising. The country has 
something like nine million head of cattle and 
fifteen million head of sheep. The meat packing 
business is enormous for such a small country. 

Fray Bentos, a town near Montevideo, boasts of 
the largest establishment in the world for the 
preparation of beef extract. The tall chimneys 
of this great factory make it look like a large city. 
The employees number thousands. They are well 
cared for and contented. There are no strikes 
there. They are well paid while able to work and 
pensioned when they reach old age. 

Thus, the Leibig company, has given all South 
America an example of the better way to treat 
men and women who toil. Schools are provided 
for the children. The religious nature is looked 
after, the company furnishing a church building. 
The company also provides hospitals for the sick. 
The cottages of the working people are supplied 
with electricity^ and are quite comfortable. 

This company has its own gas and water sys- 
tems. In the great slaughter house many hundred 
head of cattle are killed each day. It only takes 



152 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

eight minutes from the time an animal is killed 
until it is in the refrigerating rooms ready to be 
made into beef extract. Every drop of blood is 
saved in this factory, being dried and made into 
chicken feed or something else that is useful. Chi- 
cago, however, goes Fray Bentos one better for 
there you know the squeal is caught by the phono- 
graph and the records sold for grand opera. 

This establishment is not the only one of its kind 
in Uruguay. There are many other great plants 
where meat is chilled or frozen in the most mod- 
ern, up-to-date way. In no country in the worlcj 
is meat more carefully or scientifically cared for 
than in these great establishments and no one need 
be afraid to eat the meat that comes from Uru- 
guay. The inspection is said to be the most rigid 
of any packing plants in the world. 

The Uruguayan boasts that every acre of 
ground in his country is productive. The grass is 
green the year around and stock does not have to 
be housed and fed in winter as in our country. 
All the grains and vegetables that will grow in our 
middle west will grow in Uruguay and there the 
farmers never have such a thing as a killing frost. 

The greatest city in Uruguay is Montevideo, the 
capital city. It is located on the Rio de la Plata 
river, which really seems more like a sea than a 
river, being sixty-two miles wide at this place. 
Buenos Aires is but a hundred and ten miles away 
and to reach it you just go angling across this great 
river. Montevideo is larger than Kansas City, 
Missouri. It has many splendid buildings, but no 
skyscrapers. The parks or plazas as they are 
called, are as pretty as nature and the hands of 
man can make them. 



Uruguay and Paraguay 153 

These people claim that Montevideo is the most 
healthful city on the globe, but the traveler often 
jBlnds the same claim made lor other cities. Most 
of the streets are narrow but are well paved and 
generally quite clean. Their street car system is 
certainly a good one. When the street is wide 
enough for a double track the tracks are laid close 
to the sidewalks which leaves the center of the 
street free for autos and other vehicles. This plan 
could certainly be adopted by the cities in our 
country and be a blessing. I had no idea that any 
city contained so many beautiful homes and flower 
gardens until I took a ride into the suburbs of this 
city. Almost every home, or villa, has a rose gar- 
den and there must be many wealthy people for 
it takes a tremendous amount of labor to keep 
these wonderful flower gardens in such good 
order. 

The people of Uruguay as a whole are better 
educated and brighter looking than the people of 
most other South American countries. Their 
schools and colleges are said to be the very best. 
The people, as a rule, dress well and seem to be 
prosperous and happy. A ramble through the 
streets and plazas lingers in one's memory like a 
pleasant dream. 

Away to the north in the very heart of the south 
central part of the continent is the country of 
Paraguay. While nearly twice as large as Uru- 
guay it has but few more than half as many people 
and a majority of them are women. This ought to 
be called a bachelor's paradise. 

Paraguay came to be a woman's country in the 
following manner. Years ago Paraguay got into 
trouble with Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, all 
her neighbors, at the same time. These countries 



154 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

combined their forces and all but annihilated the 
Paraguayan army. As all the able bodied men 
were in the army they were nearly all killed. It 
used to be said that there were five women to 
every man in Paraguay and from all reports con- 
ditions have not greatly changed yet. It is almost 
dangerous for an unmarried man to show his head. 

The country is naturally divided into two parts, 
eastern and western. The most of the people live 
in the eastern part for the western part is flat and 
the rivers overflow, covering a great portion of 
the country. No wonder that great swarms of 
ferocious mosquitoes make parts of the country 
almost uninhabitable, fever-infested and un- 
healthy. Besides these unpleasant features the 
heat is often almost unbearable. 

The summer in Paraguay lasts from October to 
March and the winter from April to September, 
July and August being the coldest months. The 
Parana river takes to the sea a greater volume 
of water than our great Mississippi. Near the place 
where the Iguassu river empties into the Parana 
are the famous Iguassu Falls which are twice as 
wide and fifty feet higher than Niagara Falls. 

In the eastern part of Paraguay are great orange 
groves and all kinds of tropical fruits. The oranges 
are delicious and are so plentiful that they are fed 
to the pigs. As many as thirty are sometimes sold 
for a penny. Wheat and corn are grown and to- 
bacco and cotton plantations are numerous. 

They say that in Paraguay a great many of the 
women smoke, but I imagine that this is greatly 
exaggerated. The same has been said of other 
South American countries but after traveling more 
than twelve thousand miles in and around this 
country I here record the fact that in not more 



Uruguay and Paraguay 155 

than a case or two did I see a woman smoking. 
My traveling company only saw two or three cases 
so we are forced to think that many talk who do 
not know. For if any large number, as is often 
reported, used the weed in this way we would have 
discovered it. 

There is a very valuable tree that grows in Para- 
guay that is not often found in other countries. It 
is called the quebracho tree. The name really 
means "ax-breaker," and the wood is almost as 
hard as iron. A quebracho log will not float upon 
water, but will sink like iron. This wood makes 
the most valuable railroad ties known. 

But a certain variety of the quebracho tree is 
much more valuable for another purpose, viz : the 
tanning of leather. For ages the world's great 
tanneries used the bark of oak, hemlock and other 
trees for that purpose. But it was discovered that 
not only the bark of this tree but the wood itself 
makes better tanning extract than any other bark 
or tree known. 

In the heart of the continent there is a vast plain 
that takes in not only western Paraguay but 
reaches into Brazil and Bolivia on the north and 
Argentina on the south. This is called the Gran 
Chaco and it is nearly as large as the state of 
Texas. Most of this region is as yet unexplored. 
In parts of it are tribes of wild Indians as well as 
wild and ferocious beasts, alligators and snakes 
that are usually found in tropical jungles. In other 
parts are grassy plains suitable for cattle and other 
livestock. Already there are many ranches here, 
one of the largest of which is run by a stockman 
from the United States. 

Here in this far away and unknown country are 
millions of acres of quebracho forests in which 



156 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

this tanning extract is already being made. Thou- 
sands of men are employed in the forest to cut 
the trees and others with oxen haul them to the 
factories where hundreds of expert workmen are 
making this extract and shipping it to all parts of 
the world. It is said that a single one of these 
companies owns two million acres of this forest 
land. More than ten thousand men are employed 
by this one firm, so it is said, and as might be 
expected it is a United States company. 

But perhaps the greatest industry in Paraguay 
is the tea called by the name of the country. In 
their country they call it "mate." It is much more 
valuable than ordinary tea. It is a stimulant that 
leaves no bad effect and is said to be more health- 
ful than the tea we use. People who have a good 
supply of this tea can work harder and with less 
fatigue than by using any other stimulant known. 

The plant or tree from which this "mate" is se- 
cured often grows as large as an orange tree and 
the leaves are green and shiny. There are thou- 
sands of acres of this growing wild and the prod- 
uct made from that in the wild state is as good as 
any. Thousands of Indians, as well as white peo- 
ple, are engaged in the harvesting and shipping of 
this tea. 

The largest city in Paraguay is Asuncion, the 
capital city. It is nearly as large as Des Moines, 
Iowa, and a portion of it is simply the ruins of the 
ancient city that was ruled by tyrants. One can 
see the massive uncompleted tomb where the last 
of these rulers expected to be buried. The two 
million dollar palace in which he liyed in luxury 
and unspeakable vice can also be seen. But an- 
other part of the city is modern and up-to-date. 



Uruguay and Paraguay 157 

Before closing this article at least one man noted 
in the story of Paraguay should be mentioned. He 
was the first of the tyrants that ruled immediately 
after Paraguay freed herself from Spanish oppres- 
sion. His name was Dr. Jose R. G. Francia and, 
according to the historian, for twenty-five years 
he was the government of Paraguay. In all history 
no man ever so dominated and controlled a nation 
as did he. He had no confidants or assistants. No 
one was allowed to approach him on terms of 
equality. He neither received nor sent consuls 
from or to any foreign countries. He was the sole 
foreign merchant of his country. 

This man was gloomy and peculiar and assumed 
supreme power without marrying, was against the 
educated classes and ordered wholesale execu- 
tions. So fearful was he of assassination that he 
lived in several houses and no one but himself 
knew where he would sleep at night. When he 
walked the streets guards walked both in front 
and behind him. The very news that he was out 
was sufficient to clear the streets. And yet, power- 
ful and cruel that he was, the humblest Indian 
could receive a hearing and justice from him. He 
was modest in a way, abstemious and never used 
his power for selfish indulgence. He was one of 
the wonders of history. 



CHAPTER XXII 
The Wonderful Argentine Republic 

THE wonderful Argentine Republic is a little 
world in itself. Take all the United States east 
of the Mississippi river, add the state of Texas, 
place them in the Argentine Republic and there 
will be room for more. Here you can find some of 
the highest and most rugged mountains and then 
you can travel two thousand miles and hardly find 
a hill worthy of the name. 

From the torrid heat of the north you can go to 
the cold, bleak glacial regions of the south, all in 
Argentine. The seasons are just the opposite from 
ours. July is their coldest month and the hottest 
time in the year is in January. The north side of 
the house is the sunny side. In the Argentine there 
are some of the finest forest regions imaginable 
and then you can travel a thousand miles across 
level plains and never see a tree. 

The southern part of Argentina used to be called 
Patagonia. This is the Alaska of South America. 
The extreme southern point is the island of Tierra 
del Fuego, which is divided between Argentina 
and Chile. Argentina's part of the island is as 
large as the state of Massachusetts. 

Argentina has nearly five hundred million acres 
of ground that can be cultivated and this great 
area is extended over well watered plains, all of 
which are so accessible to the sea that the simplest 
railway construction is all that is necessary. Of 
this vast area only about one-fifth has as yet been 
cultivated or brought within the present railway 
area. 



The Wonderful Argentine Republic 159 

At present the country has less than one-tenth 
as many miles of railway as the United States 
and what they have is practically under English 
control. Engines and cars are all of English pat- 
tern. American locomotive works make engines 
for some of these lines, but everyone of them must 
be made strictly according to the English pattern. 

One-fifth of the eight million people in the Ar- 
gentine live in Buenos Aires, the capital city. This 
city is the Paris of South America and is one of 
the great cities of the world. Here can be seen 
more extravagance perhaps than in any other city 
in the world. The advertised rates in the best 
hotels are from twelve to sixty dollars per day 
and these hotels are nearly always crowded. The 
writer attended a luncheon given by the United 
States Chamber of Commerce at the Hotel Plaza. 
The price was three dollars and a half per plate; 
there was scarcely anything to eat and the waiters 
expected a dollar tip from each man. 

These people buy their clothes in Paris and are 
only satisfied with the latest fashion. They drink 
French liquor in French style and demand the best 
Parisian comedy and opera in their theaters. The 
Colon theater is finer than anything in New York, 
and rivals any playhouse in Europe. It seats thir- 
ty-seven hundred and fifty people and I am told 
that a man cannot get in unless he is dressed in an 
evening suit. 

Buenos Aires boasts of the greatest newspaper 
on the globe and surely no other paper rivals it 
when it comes to service to its patrons. That paper 
is the La Prensa and it is housed in a beautiful 
building. The office of its editor in chief makes 
one think of a king's palace. This paper provides 
a company of the best physicians and surgeons 



160 Birds eye Views of Far Lands 

who minister to all who apply free of charge. Its 
expert lawyers give council and advice free, its 
skilled teachers of music instruct all who enter 
one or more of the five series of classes. The 
prizes given annually by this journal for altruistic 
acts and deeds of heroism are worth a large sum. 
The chemical, industrial and agricultural bureaus 
are a boon to those interested in such subjects. 

This city also has the greatest race tracks in any 
land and the weekly races are generally attended 
by from thirty to fifty thousand people. The 
money bet on a single days races often runs into 
hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the Jockey 
Club that owns the race tracks is so rich that it is 
embarrassing to get its money spent. 

Of all the cemeteries the writer ever visited, the 
aristocratic burying ground in Buenos Aires caps 
the climax. To be laid away in this ground costs 
a fortune. The tombs, many of them, are above 
the ground and nearly every family tomb is a little 
chapel. Here the living friends gather on certain 
days, visit, drink tea, and smoke cigarettes with 
coffins all around them. In many of these tombs 
chairs are always in order with flowers arranged, 
kept so by the servants of the tomb. 

There are thirty-six public markets in the city, 
some of which are very large. The wool market 
alone covers thirty acres of ground and the iron 
and steel building cost four million dollars. In it 
are seventy-two cranes and elevators and fifty 
million pounds of wool can be stored at one time. 
Not far from this building is another almost as 
large where the sheep are killed. The arrange- 
ments are so complete and the men so skilled that 
it is said a single man has killed as many as six 
thousand sheep in a day. 



The Wonderful Argentine Republic 161 

Buenos Aires is a city of locked doors. People 
never think of leaving their homes even for a few 
moments without locking the doors. If a business 
house or hotel has a rug at the door on which to 
wipe the shoes it will be chained fast. Stealing 
and pilfering is carried on extensively all over the 
city. Shippers claim that there is an international 
organization for stealing at the port cities all along 
the coast and it is hard to get at. In one shipment 
of thirty automobiles twenty-nine of the boxes 
had been opened and the set of tools taken. It is 
the custom at that factory to pack the set of tools 
in a certain corner of the case. A hole was cut 
exactly in the right place and the set of tools neatly 
taken out. In fwo instances that I was told about 
a drygoods firm had shipments opened and ten 
thousand dollars worth of silks and velvets taken. 

Near the city is said to be the largest dairy in 
the world. They milk seven thousand cows and 
this is done with the latest and most up-to-date 
machinery. At an annual stock show recently the 
crowds were so dense that men paid five dollars 
each to get near enough to the judges to see them 
do their work. The sale at the close was attended 
by five thousand people. The champion shorthorn 
bull sold for more than forty thousand dollars of 
American money. The champion Hereford sold 
for $32,737.00 and a two-year-old bull sold for 
$23,643.00. One ram sold for more than four 
thousand dollars. 

The Argentine could be made a great sugar 
producing country, but for some reason this indus- 
try is not being developed very rapidly. During 
the war special inducements were offered but the 
1919 crop was but little more than that of 1913. 
There are only forty-three mills and refineries in 



162 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

the whole country and the surplus for exportation 
for 1919 was only three hundred thousand tons 
and that is insignificant when one thinks of the 
possibilities of this great industry. 

But one can hardly think of Argentina without 
thinking of cattle ranches and wheat fields. It is 
in these industries that she shines. She now has 
thirty million head of cattle, but strange as it may 
seem she had as many ten years ago. She has 
thirty million sheep which makes her the greatest 
wool producing country on earth except Australia 
and if I am correctly informed she is not far 
behind that country. 

In Argentina the country is called "Elcampo" 
and the large farms "Estancias." These great 
estancias often consist of thousands of acres. A 
single one of them is said to be as large as the state 
of Rhode Island. The owners generally have good 
houses but do not live in them much of the time. 
They are in Buenos Aires, or traveling in Europe, 
and their children are in the colleges and univer- 
sities. A number of overseers look after the farm 
but the work is largely done by foreigners, mostly 
Italians. Their lives are far from easy. 

The homes of these workers are generally made 
of mud. The floors are often nothing but the bare 
ground. These people are generally called colo- 
nists and work the soil on shares. They are in debt 
to start on; the overseers generally manipulate 
things so that they often never do get out of debt. 
The poor man's children do not have much in 
common with those of the rich. They are gener- 
ally kept entirely separate from each other. 

While the cities are filled with beautiful parks 
and clinging roses are nearly everywhere, yet I 
never saw a country town with any thing beautiful 



The Wonderful Argentine Republic 163 

in sight. The streets of these towns are either mud 
holes or dust piles, no work whatever being done 
upon them. The houses and stores are one-story 
buildings and often look liks hovels. The one ex- 
ception is the railroad station and often that is 
quite well kept. 

There are no four-wheeled wagons like ours in 
this country. All the hauling is done on large 
lumbersome carts often pulled by oxen. But they 
sure load them heavy; how they get so much stuff 
on them is a mystery. Much of the farming is 
slovenly done. While England produces thirty 
bushels of wheat per acre the rich fields of Ar- 
gentine only produce eleven bushels per acre. 
This is but little more than half as much per acre 
as is raised in Saskatchewan and Argentine soil is 
fully as rich as Canadian grain fields. 

I crossed the great Argentine plain in October. 
Wheat was just beginning to head. Corn planting 
was in progress. Alfalfa fields were green while 
both trees and flowers were in bloom. But in rid- 
ing six hundred miles without a hill, or tree except 
those planted by the hands of man, the journey 
soon became monotonous. Thousands of acres 
were almost covered with cattle and sheep. 

On Sunday men and women were in the fields 
almost the same as any other day. At the towns 
almost the entire population came down to see 
the International train go through. This train only 
runs twice a week. The young women were 
dressed in their best but they were never with the 
young men. They would parade up and down the 
platform while the young men would go in the 
other direction and the lads and lassies hardly 
seemed to notice each other. 



164 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

The train ran almost on the dot. A hotbox de- 
layed it thirty minutes on one occasion but it was 
carefully watched. At every stop for hours the 
train would hardly come to a standstill before a 
couple of men were at that box. The engines have 
no bells on them and the whistle is blown just 
before the train starts rather than before it stops 
as in our country. The train was largely made up 
of sleepers and a diner. The cars were quite com- 
fortable. The berths are crosswise rather than 
lengthwise as in our sleepers. Everything on this 
train, however, from fare to eats was very ex- 
pensive. 

On many of the larger farms the better breeds of 
stock are being raised, agricultural schools are 
springing up and scientific farming is being talked 
about. The government is taking a hand along 
many lines. Some of the great estancias are being 
divided and subdivided. The Welch people have 
a large settlement where better methods are being 
introduced. The Jews have a large colony and 
even the Italians are looking forward to a better 
day. Men from this country are entering in small 
numbers but with ideas that will revolutionize 
things, and especially the school house. An Eng- 
lishman truly said: "Wherever the Germans go 
you find the arsenal; wherever the French go you 
find the railroad; wherever the British go you find 
the custom house, but wherever the Americans go 
you find the school house." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Yankeedom of South America — Chile 

ON ACCOUNT of their energj^ and enterprise 
the people of Chile have been called the Yan- 
kees of South America. They are a quick tem- 
pered people but often show a disposition to be 
whiter than their skin would signify. 

On a railroad train I saw a well-dressed young 
Chilean raise the car window. Behind him was 
an elderly man who did not like the wind blowing 
in and he evidently made some sign to the con- 
ductor, who simply put the window dowoi. 

This angered the young man who raised the 
window again. A little later the conductor came 
back and said something to the young man who 
lowered the window immediately. The old gen- 
tleman had moved by this time and I supposed 
that the incident was closed. 

A little later the young man called the conductor 
and had him go and apologize to the old gentle- 
man who came and sat down in the seat with the 
young man. Then they settled their differences, 
smoked and visited together like old friends. I 
felt a sort of admiration for these men that they 
would settle their difference on the spot and be- 
came friends. Such a procedure is much better 
than carrying a grouch. 

The country of Chile is a narrow strip of land 
from fiftv^ to two hundred and fifty miles wide, 
but so long that if one end were placed at New 
Orleans the other end would reach to the Arctic 
Circle. The mighty ridge of the Andes mountains 
extends almost the entire distance. One of these 



166 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

peaks in Chile is nearly five miles high — the high- 
est on the globe except Mount Everest. 

In Chile there are many rich valleys yet much 
of the land is a desolate desert. One writer sug- 
gests regarding this awful silent region that the 
Desert of Sahara is a botanical garden in compar- 
ison with it. I traveled five hundred miles along 
this desert without seeing a tree or a blade of 
grass. This was in the northern part where it 
never rains. Much of the southern part is covered 
with water-soaked forests. 

Yet this Chilean desert is almost as valuable as 
a gold mine. Here are the only large deposits of 
nitrate of soda in the world. While no plants 
of any kind grow in this desert yet from it is 
obtained the product that farmers all over the 
world use for fertilizer. Plants of all kinds must 
have food to make them grow and this Chilean 
desert alone furnishes this food in abundance and 
in suitable form. 

Many millions are invested in establishments to 
get this nitrate, or saltpeter as it is often called, 
from the worthless material with which it is mixed 
and railroads to carry it to port. Little towns 
have sprung up along the seashore where the ni- 
trates make up cargoes of hundreds of ships which 
carry this fertilizer to all parts of the world. 

A gentleman who lives in Santiago told me how; 
he could set out tomato plants in the best soil, 
take a little handful of nitrates that look like com- 
mon salt, dissolve it in water and pour it on the 
soil and the difference it would make is almost 
unbelievable. But a spoonful dropped on the 
plant will kill it. It never rains on these nitrate 
beds — if it did they would be worthless. 



Yankeedom of South America — Chile 167 

Of course, the people who do the work in these 
deserts or in the little ports along the shore have 
a hard life. No green lawns or trees adorn their 
villages. The dust is irritable and the people are 
a hard-looking class. In one of these towns which 
I saw, Antofagasta by name, the water the people 
use is brought nearly two hundred miles. The 
people used to drink champagne mostly for it was 
cheaper than water. 

Not far from Antofagasta are the great salt 
plains, said to be large enough to supply the whole 
world with this commodity for generations. The 
real nitrate beds are from fifteen to fifty miles 
from the ocean and at least three thousand feet 
above sea level. The largest beds are from four to 
five hundred miles in length so the supply is prac- 
tically inexhaustible. When the nitrates are rich- 
est they are mixed with rock — about half and half. 
It is blasted out with dynamite, loaded on carts 
and dumped into great machines that grind it to 
a coarse powder, then thrown into immense tanks 
of boiling water where it forms in crystals on 
the sides and bottom. The water is then drawn 
off, the white sparkling stuff shoveled onto drying 
boards and when thoroughly dry is sacked and 
shipped. 

The liquid that is drawn off from these vats is 
made into iodine, which is so valuable that a cask 
of it is worth several hundred dollars. Chile owns 
about all the nitrate deposits yet discovered. She 
exports millions of tons of it annually, levies a 
tax on every ton of it and thus the government 
receives an immense income each year from this 
one industry. 

In addition to the nitrate industry, Chile has 
immense stores of copper, tin and other metals. 



168 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

At one port where the ship stopped a small boat 
brought out a few sacks of copper ore. It took but 
a few minutes to put it on board but one of the 
officers said it was worth thirteen thousand dollars. 
At another Chilean port six hundred tons of tin 
were added to our cargo. Chile is about the only 
country in South America where coal is found in 
anything like large quantities. 

Of course such a mountainous region is volcanic. 
There are many earthquakes but they seldom do 
much harm. My first night in Chile was spent in 
Los Andes and I had not been in bed five minutes 
until an earthquake shock made it tremble like a 
leaf. But the people are so used to it that they 
pay no attention whatever to these minor quakes. 
At the time San Francisco was ruined, Valparaiso 
was all but destroyed but you would never know 
it by a visit to the city now. 

Chile includes a large part of the island of 
Tierra del Fuego. At the very southern tip of this 
is Cape Horn. This is a gigantic rock fourteen 
hundred feet high that juts out into the ocean 
and the great waves that continually lash against 
it make it perhaps the most dreaded spot by sail- 
ors in all the trade routes of the world. On all 
sides are wrecked vessels and this rock has been 
named the Giant Headstone in the Sailor's Grave- 
yard. 

It was the famous Magellan who discovered the 
water passage above Cape Horn and it is called 
the Strait of Magellan. While safer than the route 
around Cape Horn, yet many are the stories of 
shipwreck, hunger and suffering told by those who 
went this way during the earlier days. Here are 
some of the names of places along the Strait: 
"Fury Island," "Famine Reach," "Desolation 



Yankeedom of South America — Chile 169 

Harbor," "Fatal Bay," "Hope Inlet," and "Last 
Wreck Point." 

No one lives down at this point but tribes of 
Indians. It was the signals and campflres of these 
Indians that caused Magellan to call the island 
"Tierra del Fuego." The name means "Land of 
Fire." These Indians are said to be one of the 
lowest classes of human beings in existence today. 
Although the weather is very cold these savages 
wear but little clothing — in fact, they wore none 
until of later years they began getting cast off gar- 
ments from wrecks and are now making some of 
their own clothing from the skins of animals. 

On this strait is located Punta Arenas, which is 
the southernmost town in the world. It is directly 
south of Boston and farther south of the equator 
than Winnipeg is north of it. Only about a thou- 
sand people live here. Many of them are rough 
characters and live hard and comfortless lives. 
This town is the only port within a thousand milesi 

Although cold and cheerless most of the time, 
yet millions of sheep are raised in this southern 
land and Punta Arenas is the shipping point. A 
kind of coarse grass grows here that is nourishing 
and sheep thrive and live for weeks alone on the 
open plains. Wool, hides and meat are brought 
to this port and shipped to the outside world. Of 
course all clothing, building material and machin- 
ery must be brought in for there are no factories 
in Punta Arenas. 

Santiago, the capital of Chile, is located in a 
valley that has been called the "Garden of South 
America." This valley is seven hundred miles 
long, fifty or sixty miles wide and hundreds of 
feet above sea level. On the east are the snow- 
capped Andes and on the west the coast ranges. 



170 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

On the mountain slopes on either side are the 
great herds of cattle and sheep and lower down 
the rich fields of alfalfa and grain, fruit and 
flowers. 

Strange to say the farming is nearly all done 
with oxen. I counted six yoke of oxen in a ten- 
acre field. Women as well as men work in the 
fields. The fences are made of stone but in many 
parts of the valley you never see a stone in the 
field. If they have any modern farm machinery I 
did not see it. All the fields are irrigated, as it sel- 
dom rains in this valley in the summer time. 

Most of the best land is owned by wealthy men 
who live in the city. Those who do the work are 
mostly Indians or half breeds, and they have but 
few of the comforts of life. Many of the farms are 
great tracts and there is a store where the worker 
can purchase what he needs but the prices are 
high and he is kept in debt. A country can never 
really prosper where the tillers of the soil are 
ignorant and have no say in the affairs of the gov- 
ernment. 

It is in this valley where most of the Chileans 
live. While in other parts of the country there are 
but two people to the square mile, here in this 
valley there are seventeen to the square mile. 
Here are most of the schools and colleges, cities, 
railways and manufacturing plants. When about 
sixty per cent of the people are illiterate and this 
class is almost entirely the laboring class it does 
not look as if conditions would be changed very 
soon. 

I saw more drinking in Chile than in any other 
South American country. A portion of the city 
of Valparaiso seems to be given over almost en- 
tirely to the liquor dealers and the people who 



Yankeedom of South America — Chile 111 

throng that district are hard-looking folks. The 
fag ends of civilization seem to have gathered here. 
This is the only city in South America where I was 
accosted by both men and women and they almost 
try to hold one up in the streets in broad daylight. 

Nearly all the Chilean women dress in black. 
A black shawl is worn and you would think they 
are all dressed in mourning, but they are not. 
This black cloth is called a manto and all women, 
both rich and poor, wear them. The business por- 
tion of the city of Valparaiso is built on a narrow 
strip of land at the foot of a high hill. 

All along there are elevators or lifts as they call 
them. For a couple of pennies you can step into 
one of these lifts and be taken up a hundred feet 
or more. While one lift goes up another comes 
down as they are always built in pairs. There are 
winding ways where horses and donkeys can walk 
up but no wheeled vehicle can be taken up or 
down for it is too steep. 

For this reason the dairymen and venders all 
have donkeys or small horses. A dairyman will 
have a couple of large milk cans, one on either 
side of the beast, or perhaps a small barrel on the 
top of a frame or saddle. The man leads or drives 
the animal and they are so sure-footed that they 
can go up a place so steep that one not used to 
climbing could not make the ascent. 

There are but few North Americans in Chile. I 
had breakfast (they call the noon meal breakfast) 
with the American Club. There were but twenty- 
five or thirty present, mostly business men. But 
few of these men are satisfied to stay long in Chile. 

The American Y. M. C. A. is doing some good 
work in Valparaiso, as in all other South Ameri- 
can cities. The rooms are well patronized and 



172 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

it was homelike to see the leading magazines of 
the United States upon the reading table. The 
Sunday afternoon program that I attended was 
well gotten up and very interesting. 

While in Chile you see more to remind you of 
the United States than in any other South Ameri- 
can country but I was not favorably impressed 
with the people. They will not compare in looks 
or actions with the people east of the Andes. Lack 
of education, culture and refinement are notice- 
able everywhere. Religion and morality are con- 
spicuous by their absence and one cannot but pity 
those who live among them although one sees 
some good traits in many of them. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
The Switzerland of South America — Bolivia 

IN THE very heart of the South American con- 
tinent there is a vast table-land nearly as large 
as the great Mississippi valley, that some titanic 
convulsion has boosted up nearly three miles in 
the air. This great plateau is hemmed in by 
mountains, the coast range on the west and the 
main range on the east. 

These mountain peaks rise as high as twenty- 
two thousand feet. In these heights, two and one- 
half miles above sea level is Lake Titicaca, which 
is one hundred and sixty miles long and thirty 
miles wide. This lake, which is the highest body 
of water in the western hemisphere, is fed by 
streams of water from the Andes and is so cold 
that ice is formed along the edge every night in the 
year although the lake itself is never frozen over. 
The lake has no outlet and the color of the water 
is a steely blue. 

This lake forms the northwestern border of 
Bolivia. Situated as it is, including both moun- 
tains and table-land, Bolivia has been called the 
Switzerland of South America. It is more than 
twelve times as large as the state of Iowa and is 
the cradle of the ancient civilization that made 
up the world-famous Inca empire which existed 
many centuries ago. 

The people of Bolivia today have the blood of 
this ancient race in their veins and they are an 
industrious people. Visiting a mission school in 
Buenos Aires I was much impressed by one young 
man who seemed to be the peer of the two hun- 
dred students in the school. 



174 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

On talking to this young man I found that he 
was from Bolivia. How he heard about this mis- 
sion school I have forgotten, but the story of how 
he tramped two hundred miles over the mountains 
and then across the great Argentine plains deter- 
mined to reach this school and work his way 
through, could not be forgotten. On Sunday 
morning I went to the American church and this 
fellow was at the door as an usher and the 
friendly greeting and winning smile he had for 
everyone gave me great respect for him and his 
people as well. 

Portions of this great Bolivian plateau are very 
beautiful. One noted naturalist coming from 
Paraguay said as he beheld this region, "If tradi- 
tion has lost the records of the place where Para- 
dise is located the traveler who visits these regions 
of Bolivia feels at once the impulse to exclaim: 
^Here is Eden.' " 

Here grows the famous chincona tree from 
which we get quinine. Also the coca plant from 
which we get cocaine. Perhaps when the dentist 
pulled your tooth he used cocaine that came from 
this country. The natives chew the coca leaf as a 
stimulant. It is actually said that by the use of 
this leaf a man can go for many hours without 
food and perform feats of endurance that seem 
to us impossible. 

The cultivation of the coca plant is one of the 
important industries of eastern Bolivia. The plant 
grows as a shrub and must not be confused with 
the cocoa tree from the beans of which our choco- 
late and cocoa are made. The Bolivians produce 
eight to ten million pounds of coca leaves an- 
nually. The telegraph system of portions of this 
region is made up of fleet-footed Indians and it is 



The Switzerland of South America — Bolivia 175 

said that with a supply of coca leaves and parched 
corn they can run jBfty miles a day. 

Here too grows the quinna which is not only a 
substitute for wheat but more nutritious and easier 
raised if reports are true. Cotton and sugar are 
produced in Bolivia as are the nutmeg and castor 
bean. Oranges and all such fruit are also grown 
in some parts of this country. But the supply and 
variety of medicinal plants is remarkable. The 
list includes aconite, arnica, absinthe, belladonna, 
camphor, cocaine, ginger, ipecac, opium, sarsa- 
parilla and a lot of others. 

But this great inland country is noted the world 
around for its rich mines. Mount Potosi is often 
spoken of as a mountain of silver. It is said that 
not only millions but billions of dollars worth of 
silver have been taken from this one mountain. 
There are said to be six thousand abandoned 
mines on its slopes to say nothing of the hundreds 
that are being worked today. The city of Potosi 
used to be the largest city in the western hemis- 
phere and was ten times its present size when the 
early settlements of the United States were but 
small villages. 

While the silver in this mountain is not nearly 
exhausted by any means, yet it was discovered 
that deeper down is a mountain of tin. Bolivia 
has been furnishing more than one-fourth of the 
world's supply of tin for many years. 

On the hills back of the city of Potosi can still 
be seen the thirty-two lakes or reservoirs that used 
to furnish water for the city and mines. It took 
half a century to complete this great ancient water 
system. The largest of these lakes is three miles 
in circumference and thirty feet deep. Each lake 
is surrounded by five sets of walls and two of these 



176 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

reservoirs are sixteen thousand feet above sea 
level. All this mighty work was done before rail- 
roads were ever dreamed of. Only recently a rail- 
road was built into this mining city and many of 
these abandnoed mines are being opened again. 

The capital of Bolivia used to be Sucre. In fact, 
it is still the nominal capital of the republic. Here 
live many of the wealthy mine owners of the re- 
gion. The Supreme Court is held here and the 
new government palace is a stately building. The 
richest cathedral in Bolivia is here and the image 
of the Virgin in it is made of solid gold adorned 
with jewels and is worth a million dollars. 

There are nine public parks or plazas in the 
city of Sucre and through one of these flows two 
streams of pure water. The one on the north side 
runs north and finally reaches the Atlantic Ocean 
through the great Amazon river while the other 
flows southward reaching the sea through the Rio 
de la Plata river. 

The capital of Bolivia as we know it is La Paz, 
but only the legislative and executive departments 
are in this city. Although La Paz is more than 
twelve thousand feet above sea level it is located 
in the bottom of a deep canyon. Back of the city 
is the giant peak of Mount Illimani which pierces 
the sky at the height of twenty-one thousand feet. 
While the weather is always warm in the day time 
it gets very cool at night, sometimes freezing cold. 
As they have no heating stoves it is very uncom- 
fortable to sit quiet. 

The farmers of Bolivia live in little villages as 
a rule and know but little of the comforts of life. 
Their houses are built of mud and both people and 
animals often live in the same room. Their farms 
have to be irrigated and the people are skilled in 



The Switzerland of South America — Bolivia 177 

this work. The plows used are wooden sticks and 
generally pulled by oxen. As in other South 
American countries the land is mostly owned by 
wealthy men who let it out on shares to common 
farmers who are generally kept in debt and have 
but little independence. 

The question of fuel for cooking purposes is one 
of their great problems. As our early settlers on 
the western plains had to use buffalo chips for 
fuel, these people use a great deal of donkey and 
llama dung for the same purpose. They bake 
their bread in small community ovens that are 
built something like a large barrel with a dome 
shaped top. On bread baking day they build a 
fire of moss, bushes and dry dung and heat the 
stove oven. Then they remove the coals, put their 
bread in and when it is baked you may be sure 
that it does not smell very good. 

The great beast of burden in Bolivia is the llama, 
w^hich looks something like a cross between a 
camel and a sheep. Like the camel it can go for 
days without food or drink. It can be turned out 
and will make its living brousing on coarse grass, 
moss and shrubs that grow on the mountains. It 
is an intelligent animal and if loaded a little too 
heavily will lie down and refuse to budge until 
the load is lightened. 

The women of these Indian farmers and herders 
dress rather queerly. They put on many bright 
colored skirts all of a different hue. As the day 
grows warmer they remove a skirt showing one 
of a different hue. They are proud of their skirts 
and take much pride in showing each other their 
fine clothing. 

These women too are nearly always at work. If 
they are walking along driving llamas they are 



178 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

working as they walk winding wool into yarn or 
knitting some garment. With juices from plants 
the yarn is colored and by means of a loom which 
any woman among them can make they weave 
this yarn into a kind of cloth. 

In Bolivian cities there are large markets to 
which these Indian women especially resort. On 
the ground are little piles of fruit, coca leaves and 
other products. They have no scales and sell by 
the pile. The gardeners will sell their products 
of onions, beans, parched corn and all such stuff 
in this way. 

Thus the people of this great inland empire live 
above the clouds. One of their railroads is a half 
mile higher than Pike's Peak in places and one of 
their cities, AuUagus, lacks but a hundred feet of 
being as high as this. They have four cities more 
than fourteen thousand feet above sea level, twen- 
ty-six above the thirteen thousand foot line, and 
seventy-three cities above the twelve thousand 
foot line. Of the one hundred and fifty-one cities 
in Bolivia most every one is above the eleven thou- 
sand foot line. Truly this land is the "Switzerland 
of South America." 



CHAPTER XXV 
The Land of Mystery — Peru 

WHEN we reach the backbone of Peru we are 
not only above the clouds as in Bolivia, but 
we are surrounded by mystery. Here can be seen 
today the ruins of temples that were richer per- 
haps than any of those of the countries with which 
we are all so familiar. This article, however, will 
largely have to do with the Peruvian country as 
it is today. You could take a map of Minnesota, 
Wisconsin, Michigan, North and South Dakota, 
Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma, 
place them all on the map of Peru and have terri- 
tory left 

The country runs largely north and south, hav- 
ing some fourteen hundred miles of sea coast. In 
the north is a great desert plain, but in this almost 
lifeless desert there is a great valley in which is 
a most interesting city. The name of this city is 
Piura and it is on a small river bearing the same 
name. This river is more like the Nile in Egypt 
than any other river known. Up and down this 
river are farms and plantations with irrigation 
ditches leading to fields of rice and grain, sugar 
cane and cotton as well as other valuable farm 
products. 

But upon the rise of the water in the river de- 
pends the life and prosperity of the people. Like 
the people of Egypt and the Nile, these people look 
upon this river with feelings of reverence. They 
have a great feast day for the river. In their 
spring time when the snows melt the river gradu- 
ally rises, spreading over the valley bottom and 



180 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

filling all the low places and irrigation ditches 
with w^ater. 

As the time for this rise approaches every trav- 
eler from upstream is questioned and on the day 
the big rise is due the great feast day is proclaimed 
and the people, generally five thousand or more, 
march toward the coming tide to meet the water. 
If there is an abundance of water they are sure of 
a great harvest. With fife and drum they meet 
the oncoming flood and go back with it; if it is a 
great flood they are happy and merry, but if 
the tide is low they are sad and gloomy for they 
know that many will be hungry. 

It rains here about once in seven years and 
these are called the seven year rains. Following 
the showers there is a wonderful burst of life 
every^vhere. Quick growing grasses cover the 
land with a carpet of green and fragrant blossoms 
fill the air with sweetness; but in a short time, 
except where the irrigation ditches reach the land, 
the entire region once more becomes a yellow, 
parched desert. 

In this valley grows the best cotton that is pro- 
duced anywhere. It is a well known fact among 
cotton growers that Piura cotton has a peculiar 
strength of fiber that makes it sell for nearly dou- 
ble the price of that grown in our southern states. 
As goats can live where other animals will starve, 
this valley is also noted for its great goat herds 
which make their living on the dry mountain 
sides. 

The greatest seaport of Peru is Callao. If the 
sea were rough this would be a dangerous harbor 
for all ocean liners must anchor far from the 
docks as only very small ships can approach them., 
I counted forty-two ocean liners in the harbor so 



The Land of Mystery — Peru 181 

you can imagine that it is a busy place. These 
hners represented nearly every sea-faring country 
on the globe. 

The cit}^ of Callao has had its ups and dowois. 
Some one has said that the chief product of Peru 
is revolutions and Callao has had its share of them. 
Also, nearh^ every earthquake along the coast 
gives this city a shaking up. At one time many 
years ago when the city had a population of some 
six thousand people there came an earthquake 
followed by a mightj^ tidal wave that only left 
two persons alive. The \^vy site of the cit^^ sunk 
beneath the waves of the ocean and never came 
up, the present city being built upon a new site 
entirely. 

The short ride from Callao to Lima, the capital 
city, is interesting. Here one is introduced to the 
famous "mud fence," as the fences are all made 
of mud. Little patches of ground are tilled and 
bananas, pears, oranges, and all kinds of fruit and 
vegetables as well as corn and other grain grow in 
abundance. Ever^^thing looks ancient. The ground 
is plowed by oxen hitched to a wooden stick. The 
mud huts and houses of the farmers are almost as 
bare of furniture as a hen coop and almost as 
dirty. It hardly seems possible that people so near 
the port as well as the capital city could be so 
far behind the times. 

The railroad runs along the Rimac river, but 
this is nearlv drv much of the time, the water 
being used for irrigating purposes. Ever^^thing 
smells bad and the people are even dirtier than in 
Chile. Of course, there are some beautiful spots 
in the country and plazas in the cities, but all this 
gush about the beauty and loveliness of things in 
general makes one tired. 



182 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

I saw more turkey buzzards and vultures in ten 
minutes in the city of Lima than I ever saw before 
all put together. At the slaughter house one can see 
a stream of blood running in the open soil and I 
suppose the offals are dumped out for the vultures 
to devour. The Rockefeller Foundation has set 
apart twenty-five million dollars, so I understand, 
to be spent in twenty-five Peruvian cities for the 
purpose of cleaning them up and providing sani- 
tary systems for them. The leaders of this foun- 
dation have certainly found an appropriate place 
to spend money. I have seen four or five of the 
cities that are to benefit by this appropriation and 
they all sure do need cleaning up. 

In Lima, of course, I went to the great cathedral. 
Everybody does this for it is about the most out- 
standing thing to be seen. It is said to be the 
largest cathedral in South America. The corner 
stone was laid by the great Pizarro himself in 1535. 
His bones are in the cathedral now. I saw them. 
They are in a coffin the side of which is made of 
glass. The very holes that were made in the bones 
when they tortured him can be seen. The guide 
declared that such is the case and of course he 
would not yarn to a stranger in a sacred church. 

The houses in Lima are, as a rule, only one( 
story high. The tops are flat and many of them 
are almost covered with chicken coops. They say 
that many a rooster is hatched, grows up to old age 
and enters the ministry without ever having set 
foot upon the ground. 

The small plaza in front of the cathedral is 
really beautiful and there are some good substan- 
tial buildings around it. The large depot is a 
modem, well built stately building. The streets 
are narrow and the shop doors are open to the 



The Land of Mystery— Peru 183 

street. The doors of these shops are corrugated 
iron and are raised up like the cover of a roll-top 
desk. Above the shops are the residences of the 
more well-to-do class. Little balconies are built 
out over the sidewalk and here the "idle rich" 
ladies sit and watch the crowds below. 

To me a very interesting place was a building 
that used to be a sort of a place of refuge some- 
thing like the cities of refuge we read about in the 
Bible. In the wide door, so they say, there used 
to be a chain stretched across and any man who 
could reach this was safe regardless of the crime 
he had committed. No officers or law could touch 
him. Of course, he was in the power of the keep- 
ers of the refuge. They could enslave him for life 
or kill him and no law could touch them. At 
least this is the story told me by a resident of the 
city. 

But the briefest article about Peru should not 
leave out at least a mention of the wonderful 
mountain railways of the country. The Central 
Peruvian railway tracks reach the dizzy height of 
15,865 feet above sea level, which is almost a mile 
higher than the famous Marshall Pass in the 
Rockies. This railroad too is a standard gauge. 
To reach this altitude the train passes over forty- 
one bridges, one of which is two hundred and fifty 
feet high. It passes through sixty tunnels, the 
highest one of which is the Galeria tunnel, which 
is 15,665 feet above the sea. 

This railroad, perhaps the most wonderful ever 
constructed, was built by Henty Meiggs, an Amer- 
ican contractor from New York. Some eight thou- 
sand men were employed in the construction and 
in some places in order to gain a foothold to begin 
their work they had to be swung down from dizzy 



184 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

heights above and held while they cut a safe place 
in the rocks. 

As might be expected many men were killed 
during the building of this railway. Once a run- 
away engine crashed into a derrick car on the top 
of a bridge and the debris can be seen in the valley 
below to this day. Several Americans lost their 
lives in this one accident. It is quite remarkable, 
however, that there has not been a single accident 
where a life was lost since the construction was 
completed years ago. This line is two hundred 
and fifty miles in length and every mile cost a snug 
fortune. It takes a train almost ten hours to reach 
the summit and the average rise the entire dis- 
tance is twenty-seven feet per minute. 

Near Callao are some islands which are very in- 
teresting to tillers of the soil especially. In pass- 
ing them I noticed millions and millions of birds. 
For many centuries these islands have been the 
nesting places for these sea fowl. Not only have 
these birds lived and died here but multiplied 
thousands of seal have come here to breed. The 
droppings of these millions of birds and animals 
and the accumulating bodies of the dead have 
decayed and made a kind of grayish powder. This 
substance is called guano and it is hundreds of 
feet thick. 

Hundreds of years ago it was discovered that 
this substance is the best fertilizer known. In the 
early days the Incas took every precaution to dis- 
tribute this guano to agriculturists in the country. 
Districts of this deposit were allotted to certain 
territories and the boundaries of each district 
were clearly defined and all encroachments upon 
the rights of others were severely punished. No 
one was allowed to go about these islands during 



The Land of Mystery — Peru 185 

the breeding season under pain of death and the 
same penalty was meted out to any man who killed 
either birds or animals here. 

Of late years millions of dollars worth of this 
guano have been shipped to all parts of the world. 
While the islands are closed to shipping during 
the breeding season and it is thought that many of 
the birds especially have been frightened away, 
yet they come in such numbers at times that it is 
said that the sky is darkened as they fly over. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
The World's Great Crossroad — Panama Canal 

PERHAPS the greatest achievement of history, 
both in length of time of construction and in 
service to humanity, stands to the credit of the 
United States. The Panama Canal was dug in less 
time than it took to build the causeway in Egypt to 
get the stone from the quarries to where it was 
wanted for the big pyramid. This canal, too, is 
wholly an American achievement. It was planned 
by American brains, constructed by American en- 
gineers and with American machinery, and paid 
for with American gold, and every American has 
great reason to be proud of it. 

We paid the Republic of Panama ten million 
dollars for the lease on the zone through which 
the canal passes, and are now paying the same 
government two hundred and fifty thousand dol- 
lars per year to keep them in a good humor. We 
bought the ground again from individual owners 
and have agreed to pay Colombia twenty-five mil- 
lion dollars to keep her from raising a racket. We 
paid the French forty million dollars for the work 
they did and the machinery they left so the whole 
thing, lock, stock and barrel, ought to be ours 
without any question. 

It was published on supposedly good authority 
that some of the machinery we used was pur- 
chased from Belgium, that we could not make it 
in America. While visiting Mr. P. B. Banton, the 
chief office engineer, some time ago I asked him 
about this and he said the only machinery Bel- 
gium furnished was to the French. We tried to 



The World's Great Crossroad — Panama Canal 187 

repair and use part of this but it had to be dis- 
carded entirely. 

We purchased two gigantic cranes to use in the 
work from Germany, but one of them collapsed 
and both had to be rebuilt by American machinists 
before they w^ould do the work they were guaran- 
teed to do. The only parts used in the canal that 
were not made in America, according to Mr. Ban- 
ton, are some gigantic screws which were made in 
Sweden. It so happened at that time that Sweden 
was the only country that had machinery to make 
such screws, and while we could have easily con- 
structed such machinery, it was cheaper to get 
them from Sweden and this was done. After mak- 
ing this statement, Mr. Banton got the drawings 
and explained them, and later on I saw some of 
them in the Gatun-Locks. If I remember correctly 
they are about eight inches in diameter and forty 
or fifty feet long. 

Speaking of drawings and blue prints this offi- 
cial said: "There are more than eighty thousand 
drawings in this one room." Of course, the origi- 
nal blue prints and complicated drawings of the 
canal are sealed up in a great bomb-proof vault, 
kept dry by electricity. Although I had passed 
through the canal on a ship and rode up and down 
it on the train it was only after talking an hour 
with this engineer and then going into the control 
station tower and watching boats taken through 
the Gatun lock system, going into the tunnels 
below and watching the gigantic cog wheels and 
wonderful machinery, that I began to appreciate 
the real ingenuity and brain work of this colossal 
achievement. 

On his last voyage to the new world Colmnbus 
visited Panama and was told by the Indians that 



188 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

beyond a narrow strip of land was the "Big 
Water." He sailed up the Chagres river a dis- 
tance, failed to find it, and died believing that they 
were mistaken. About ten years later Balboa 
climbed to the top of a tree not far from where 
Culebra Cut is located and saw the "Big Water." 
Four hundred years later almost to the day the 
water was turned into the canal and thus America 
united the world's greatest oceans. 

After completing the Suez Canal and thus unit- 
ing the world's greatest seas, the French people be- 
lieved they could dig across the Isthmus of Pana- 
ma, but digging through Culebra Cut thousands of 
miles from home was much different from digging 
across the level plain of Suez only a few hundred 
miles away. A canal without locks is entirely dif- 
ferent from one where great ocean liners must be 
lifted eighty-five feet above sea level. 

Then Panama was a jungle, where disease- 
carrying mosquitoes were swarming in districts 
where heat was almost unbearable. True, their 
medical skill was the best and their hospitals of 
the latest design, but where they cured hundreds 
thousands died like flies. Added to all these dis- 
advantages was extravagance and waste, greed 
and graft, mismanagement and misappropriation 
of funds to say nothing of palaces and princely 
salaries for officials. 

The result was that after spending more than 
two hundred million dollars of the people's money, 
the whole scheme collapsed, and the work stopped. 
De Lesseps himself was arrested, disgraced, and 
imprisoned and died with a broken heart a little 
later in an insane asylum. The French had 
worked seven years, and now for four years not 
a wheel turned. Then they organized a new com- 



The World's Great Crossroad — Panama Canal 189 

pany and worked at intervals ten years more until 
1903, when we bought them out. During these 
years a half dozen nations developed projects and 
made surveys but no digging was done except by 
the French until we took charge in 1904. 

The Canal Zone is a strip of land ten miles wide 
across the Isthmus of Panama, the distance being 
about forty miles from shore to shore. It is less 
than this, however, in a straight line. The canal 
runs from northwest to southeast, the Atlantic end 
at the north being about twenty-two miles west of 
the Pacific end at the south. This seems rather 
strange but we must remember that the Isthmus is 
in the shape of the letter S and it so happens that 
the shortest point runs in the direction named. 

Of course it would have been impossible for us 
to have dug the canal without a tremendous loss 
of life had it not been for the advance of medical 
science. Until we took charge this was one of the 
worst fever-infested districts on the globe. But 
just about this time it was discovered that the 
mosquito carries the germ of yellow fever and 
other contagious diseases. These pests breed in 
stagnant water and it was discovered that kerosene 
on the water forms a film on the surface that 
means death to the newborn mosquito. Then 
began one of the greatest battles of all history, the 
fight to eradicate the mosquito pest. 

Colonel Gorgas had charge of the forces and he 
was determined to do the job well. Tracts of the 
jungle were burned over, ditches to drain stagnant 
pools were dug, and every barrel was looked after. 
Hundreds of Negroes with oil cans sprayed almost 
every nook and corner of the Zone with kerosene. 
Houses were screened, every case of sickness was 
looked after, and the result was soon manifest. A 



190 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

mighty victory was won by Gorgas and today the 
Canal Zone is as healthful as any tropical coun- 
try on earth. Of course, people criticized and 
joked about the mosquito brigade, but the colonel 
went ahead pouring oil upon the water, cleaning 
up filth, and compelling sanitary measures, paying 
not the slightest attention to the harping critics. 

At the north end of the Zone are the cities of 
Cristobal and Colon, the latter in Panama. The 
fact is they are practically one city, the railroad 
being the dividing line. While Cristobal is clean 
and beautiful much of Colon is dirty and rum 
soaked. Somebody said to me : "Colon is that part 
of the city where you can buy a drink," and it sure 
looks it. 

While it is only about forty miles across the 
isthmus yet the canal is fifty miles long. The fact 
is they had to dredge out to deep water which is 
about five miles at each end. Entering the channel 
at the north it is about seven miles to the Gatun 
locks. There are three pairs of these locks and 
they lift the vessel to Gatun Lake, which is 
eighty-five feet above sea level. It is twenty-four 
miles across this lake to Culebra Cut, which ex- 
tends about nine miles through the hills, and to 
the first lock on the Pacific side. This lock lowers 
the ship about thirty feet to Miraflores Lake, which 
is a little more than a mile in length. Here are 
two pairs of locks which lowers the ship to sea 
level and then it is about eight miles or a little 
more to deep water. Counting all the distance 
occupied by the locks we have the fifty miles. 

Gatun Lake was made by a great dam across the 
Chagres river. This dam is a stupendous piece of 
work, being a half mile wide at the bottom, a 
mile and a half long, and more than one hundred 



The World's Great Crossroad — Panama Canal 191 

feet high. A gigantic spillway allows the surface 
water to run over. During the dry season, about 
four months, the river does not supply enough 
water to run the locks so Gatun Lake must furnish 
the supply. This lake at present covers one hun- 
dred and sixty-four square miles, and last year it 
was lowered five feet during the dry season. The 
land has been purchased for the extension of the 
lake and the great spillway can be raised twenty 
feet higher if necessary so that a shortage of water 
is practically impossible. 

Each lock in the canal is a thousand feet long, 
one hundred and ten feet wide, and the average 
height about thirty feet, so they hold a tremendous 
amount of water. Every ship passing through 
empties two lock chambers full of water into the 
ocean at each end. It is an interesting fact that at 
the Atlantic tlie tide only makes a difference of 
two and a half feet, at the Pacific side the differ- 
ence is more than twenty feet. While the low lock 
gates at the Atlantic side are sixty-four feet high 
the low lock gates at the Pacific side are eighty-two 
feet high. 

I was permitted to go into the control station 
tower at the Gatun lock system and see three ships 
taken through, also into the tunnels below to see 
the machinery in operation and it is a sight never 
to be forgotten. To take a ship through these locks 
the operator sets in motion twice ninety-eight gi- 
gantic electric motors and it is all done without an 
audible word being spoken. Every possible emer- 
gency has been provided for. Could an enemy 
ship by any manner of means get into the canal 
and undertake to ram the gates it would be help- 
less as far as any damage is concerned. Mighty 
chains guard the gates and it is impossible to get 



192 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

the gates closed without these chains being raised 
to their places. Emergency gates are provided sq 
the water can all be shut oflf, the locks emptied 
and repairs made in the bottoms of the lock cham- 
bers, if necessary. 

At the continental divide the Culebra Cut is 
almost five hundred feet deep and more than a 
half mile wide at the top. The channel itself is 
three hundred feet wide and forty-five feet deep. 
There have been half a hundred slides and a single 
one of them brought down an area of seventy-five 
acres. Think of a seventy-five acre field all sliding 
in at once, every foot of which had to be dug out! 

The worst trouble was when the bottom bulged 
up from below. Some little time before my visit 
a large tree came up from the bottom. It had been 
rolled in by one of those fearful slides and long 
afterwards came up from the bottom. Somebody 
has figured out that if all the dirt that has been 
taken from Culebra Cut was loaded on railroad 
cars they would, if coupled together, make a train 
that would reach around the world four times. 

The canal cost about four hundred million dol- 
lars. The tolls now amount to almost a million 
dollars a month so it is more than paying expenses. 
The ship upon which I passed through paid seven 
thousand dollars toll, but it was one of the largest 
ships that pass through. Now that the danger fronts 
slides is practically over and trade routes are being 
established it ought to be a paying investment. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

The Seven Wonders of the World 

A FEW years ago the editor of one of the great 
magazines of America sent out a thousand 
letters to as many scientists and great men scat- 
tered among all civilized nations in an effort to 
get the consensus of opinion as to what might be 
called the seven wonders of the modern world. A 
ballot was prepared containing fifty-six subjects of 
scientific and mechanical achievement and blank 
spaces in which other subjects might be written. 
Each man was asked to designate the seven he felt 
were entitled to a place on the list. He, of course, 
was not confined to the printed list and could write 
in others that were better entitled to a place than 
those on the printed hst. 

About seventy per cent of these ballots were re- 
turned properly marked and the result was most 
interesting indeed. At once it was discovered that 
a complete change in human intelligence or judg- 
ment has taken place since the ancient Greeks 
made their list of the seven wonders of the world. 
Today the standard of measurement as to what 
should be classed in such a list is service to hu- 
manity, while in the old days the standard of 
measurement was or at least had largely to do with 
brute force. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that wireless 
telegraphy should have the highest place on the 
list. Guglielmo Marconi is far more worthy to 
be remembered than the king who built the great 
Pyramid in Egj^pt. This brilliant Italian, when 
but fifteen years of age was reveling in the dream- 
land wonders of electricity and when but twenty 



194 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

had the theory practically worked out and his pa- 
tience and enthusiasm were simply amazing. He 
actually tried more than two thousand experi- 
ments along a single line before he was able to 
demonstrate the truth of one of his own theories. 

No one crosses the Atlantic Ocean these days 
who is not impressed with the marvels of this 
wonderful discovery. Through it the seven seas 
have became great whispering galleries. One of 
the greatest races the writer ever saw he did not 
see at all. For three days and nights two great 
ocean liners raced across the deep and never came 
in sight of each other at all. Yet every few hours 
we all knew just which ship was gaining and it 
was really a most exciting race. A few hours after 
Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee I heard the news 
by wireless although I was on board a ship in the 
China Sea on the other side of the world. 

The telephone was given second place in the list 
of modern wonders. It is hard to realize that the 
telephone only dates back to 1875. It was during 
that year that Alexander Graham Bell and his 
assistant, Thomas A. Watson, were making experi- 
ments in a building in Boston. Mr. Watson was in 
the basement with an instrument trying without 
success to talk with Mr. Bell in the room above. 
Finally the latter made a little change in the in- 
strument and spoke and Mr. Watson came rushing 
upstairs greatly excited, saying: "Why, Mr. Bell, 
I heard your voice distinctly and could almost 
understand what you were saying." 

The next year the imperfect telephone was ex- 
hibited at the Centennial in Philadelphia, but for 
a time it was the laughing stock of most people 
and hardly anyone ever dreamed that it would 
ever be more than a mere plaything. One day 



The Seven Wonders of the \Yorld 195 

Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, who knew Mr. 
Bell personally, came in. With him was Sir Wil- 
liam Thompson, the great English scientist. The 
emperor was given the receiver and placed it to 
his ear and was suddenly startled, saying: "My 
God, it speaks." This amused all, but greatly in- 
terested the man of science and thus the telephone 
was brought into prominence. While at the 
World's Fair in San Francisco I sat with a receiver 
and heard a man speaking in New York as plainly 
as though he were in the next room. Sitting within 
the sound of the waves of the Pacific, I was con- 
nected up with Atlantic City and heard the waves 
of the Atlantic. 

The third largest number of votes were given to 
the aeroplane and since the birdmen played such 
a part in the world war these scientists were cor- 
rect in giving the flying machine a place among the 
wonders of the modern world. The fourth place 
was given to Radium, the fifth to Antiseptics and 
Antitoxines, the sixth to Spectrum Analysis, and 
the seventh to the marvelous X-Ray. Had eight 
subjects been called for the Panama Canal would 
have had a place, for it lacked but eleven votes 
of tie for seventh place. It can, therefore, be 
called the eighth wonder of the modern world. 

How different were the ideas of men during the 
days of ancient Greece. It is a remarkable fact 
that among the seven wonders of the ancient world 
only one of them was of any real service to hu- 
manity. True, one or two of them served as tombs 
for the dead and one of them was a sort of a pleas- 
ure resort, but it proved a curse rather than a 
blessing. The one of real service was the Pharos, 
or lighthouse, at Alexandria, Egypt. This was a 
gigantic structure more than four hundred feet 



196 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

high on the top of which a great fire was kept burn- 
ing at night, thus serving as a lighthouse. The 
structure was so large at the base and the winding 
roadway so spacious that it is said a team of 
horses could be driven to the summit. The entire 
building has long since disappeared, but while in 
Alexandria its location was pointed out to me. 

In the list of ancient wonders, however, the 
Pyramids of Egypt were given first place. There 
are seventy-seven of these pyramids altogether. 
Three of them are located less than a dozen miles 
from Cairo, the others being up the river Nile a 
half day's journey. The largest is known as the 
Pyramid of Cheops and is nearest Cairo. It covers 
thirteen acres of ground and is four hundred and 
fifty feet high. My first sight of it was a disap- 
pointment for after all it is nothing but a pile of 
stone, and seems smaller to the eye than it really 
is. When one walks along by its side and begins 
the ascent to the top, however, its immensity be- 
gins to grow and impress the mind. 

Heroditus, the Father of History, says a hundred 
thousand men worked on this pyramid at one time 
and that it took twenty years to build it. It was 
scientifically and mathematically constructed ages 
before modern science or mathematics were born. 
The one who planned it knew that the earth is a 
sphere and that its motion is rotary. It is said that 
in all the thousands of years since it was built not 
a single fact in astronomy or mathematics has 
been discovered to contradict the wisdom of those 
who constructed it. 

On the north side of the pyramid, about fifty 
feet up, there is a narrow tunnel that runs down at 
an angle of twenty-six degrees to the center of the 
field that forms its base. The tunnel is so true that 



The Seven Wonders pf the World 197 

from the bottom one can see the star, that is near 
the North Star, which is supposed to have been 
directly in the north when the structure was built. 
After you have descended eighty-five feet in this 
tunnel there is another tunnel that runs up to the 
center of the structure where there are some large 
rooms or chambers. The pyramid was supposed 
to have been built for a tomb and these rooms are 
called the king's chamber, the queen's chamber, 
etc. In these rooms there are large mummy cases, 
but they are empty at the present time. One great 
satisfaction for me in visiting the pyramids was 
the fulfilling of a life-long desire to see all that is 
left of the seven w^onders of the ancient world. 

The third ancient wonder was the Hanging Gar- 
dens of Babylon. These gardens were in reality a 
great artificial mountain built upon massive 
arches. It was four hundred feet high and ter- 
raced on all sides and according to historians 
beautiful beyond description. Not only were beau- 
tiful flowers and shrubbery kept growing, but large 
forest trees as well. On approaching it this great 
mountain seemed to be suspended or hanging in 
the air — hence the name. Water was brought from 
the river and the ruins of these vast waterworks 
are said to be the marvel of civil engineers even 
to this day. 

It seems that these hanging gardens were built 
to please the wife of one of the most powerful 
monarchs of the old days. This queen had been 
brought up among the hills, and as Babylon was 
located on a great level plain she was dissatisfied 
and pined away for the hills and forests of her 
home land. To please her the king accomplished 
this mighty work. Today the whole thing, in fact, 
the entire city of Babylon, is nothing but a pile of 



198 Birdseye Views of Far Lands 

ruins. Portions of the city have been excavated, 
however, and old records have been found in the 
ruins that throw hght on many customs and phases 
of life in those days. Even the paving brick were 
stamped with the name of the king and anyone 
who visits the British Museum in London can see 
samples of them today. 

The next in the list of ancient wonders was the 
Temple of Diana at Ephesus. It is said that this 
temple was two hundred years in building. It was 
more than four hundred feet long and half as wide. 
The foundation was made earthquake-proof. The 
temple proper was supported by one hundred and 
twenty-seven columns which were sixty feet high. 
Each of these columns was a gift from a king. 
They tell us that the great stairway was carved 
from a single grapevine and that the cypress wood 
doors were kept in glue a lifetime before they were 
hung on their hinges. 

The image on the top of this temple was said to 
have fallen from heaven, but in reality it was 
carved from ebony and the men who did the work 
were put to death so they could not deny its ce- 
lestial origin. It is said that around this image 
stood statues which by an ingenious invention 
could be made to shed tears. Another invention 
moistened the air in the temple with sweet per- 
fume. The treasures of nations and the spoil of 
kingdoms were brought here for safe keeping and 
criminals from all nations fled to this temple, for 
when they reached it no law could touch them. 
No wonder that when the preaching of the Apostle 
Paul interfered with the business of the tradesmen 
who sold souvenirs of the image that they gathered 
up a mob and cried out for the space of two 
hours : "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," and ran 



The Seven Wonders of the World 199 

the apostle from the city. Today this temple with 
the city itself is nothing but ruins. 

Passing not far from the Island of Rhodes some 
years ago I tried to at least imagine that I could 
see the great statue called the Colossus of Rhodes 
which was given a place among these seven an- 
cient wonders, but as not a vestige of it remains 
on the island it required a great stretch of the 
imagination to behold it. But although given this 
prominence it was not as large or as beautiful as 
the Statute of Liberty that graces New York har- 
bor. It only took twelve years to build it and 
after standing fifty-six years it was overthrown 
by an earthquake and after nearly a thousand 
years the metal was used for other purposes. The 
other ancient wonders were the Statue of Jupiter 
that was made of ivory and gold by Phidias, and 
the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Both of these have 
long since passed out of existence. 

Brute force is no longer the measure of power 
or influence. Neither are towering structures or 
mighty tombs. The standard of measurement 
these days is the ability to serve. We are learning 
that the Galilean carpenter told the truth when he 
said : "He who would be great among you let him 
be servant of all." Service is one of the greatest 
words in human language. The man, or the 
institution, or the magazine that can render the 
greatest measure of service to the largest num- 
ber of people is more powerful and influential 
than all the seven wonders of the ancient world 
put together. 



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